Posted 6:58 PM by Angie Schultz

Enemies on the Right, Non-Enemies on the Left

Tim Blair praises this Julie Burchill column in the Guardian. Warbloggers will love it; she mocks the ostentatious selflessness of Susan Sarandon and Co. She really hands them their heads on a silver platter with their own exquisite pity as a garnish.

But she's full of shit:

Those who demonstrated against US aggression in Vietnam and Cuba did so because they believed that those people should have more freedom, not less.

Hmmm...Vietnam...Cuba...Cuba...Vietnam. What do those places have in common? Besides "American aggression". Oh, yeah! Communism! American "aggression" in both those places was meant to stop Communism, to save people from exactly the sort of misery that has Julie Burchill so indignant when experienced by Iraqis.

Funny how both Burchill and her enemies, the Americans, had the same goals for the Vietnamese and the Cubans.

In the next paragraph she takes on the Beautiful Peace People:

I've just heard a snippet of the most disgustingly me-me-me anti-war advert by Susan Sarandon, in which she intones, "Before our kids start coming home from Iraq in body bags, and women and children start dying in Baghdad, I need to know - what did Iraq do to us?" Well, if you mean what did Saddam do to America The Beautiful, not an awful lot - but to millions of his own people, torture and murder for a start. Don't they count?

Not for all of me they don't.

Let me make myself clear: I don't care about the Iraqis. I don't want their civilians slaughtered, and if they are liberated in the end, I will rejoice. But this war is about what Saddam could do to America the Beautiful, if he is not stopped. As so many of the Peace People have pointed out, many, many people around the world live in exactly the same sort of misery---many of them in much worse circumstances. Why pick on Iraq?

I agree. If it weren't that I perceive Saddam to be a threat to us, I wouldn't want our blood and treasure spent on the liberation of Iraq. It's simply not worth it, and it's not worth it precisely because of people like Julie Burchill.

When we did that sort of thing in the past, Burchill and her friends cried that we were evil imperialists, out to rule the whole world for ourselves and massacre anyone who got in our way. Should we try to "liberate" Cuba today, or North Korea, they'd probably say the same thing. If you research "why do they hate us?", at least as far as Europe is concerned, you find the trail leads right back to the Julie Burchills of the world.

And this is exactly what informs the views of Sarandon and the other Peace People. They've listened hard to those who told them that the US was nothing but an imperialist aggressor. Now they reflexively believe that it's impossible for the US to have any altruistic motives---even secondary ones. Now they don't even want us to fight to defend ourselves. You've taught them well, Julie.

But now, apparently, Burchill has approved our aggression. It's to liberate the little brown people from terrible suffering! Now, British soldiers are the idealists!

Your big mistake, Saddam old man, was not calling yourself a Communist. You could have had exactly the same power, exactly the same control, gassed exactly as many Kurds, and the Julie Burchills of the world would've defended your regime to the end. All you had to do was fly a few red flags and put up a few posters of Lenin. Maybe salted your rhetoric with a little "glorious workers' revolution". Would that have been too high a price to pay?

Posted 2:14 PM by Angie Schultz

Souq Sharq

I like to get postcards from exotic, furrin places. A couple of years ago, when one of my brothers was in Kuwait, I asked him to send me a postcard.

The useless little beast sent me a picture of a shopping center. At night. And not only that, but he sent it through the military post office, so it didn't even have a Kuwaiti stamp on it. When I saw him again, I complained, and he said that was all there was in Kuwait!

This picture is very similar to the one he sent. This is Souq Sharq, which was hit by a missile on Saturday. Last I heard, only one person had been injured.

Niles and I are on a quest each Christmas to find a glass spire for the top of the tree. We used to have them when I was a child, but we haven't been able to find any lately. I'll take either one of these. We're going to need a bigger tree. (This is a nice picture too.)

Posted 8:59 PM by Angie Schultz

Enough Rope

Yesterday, LGF brought some more news of Nicholas DeGenova and the "teach-in" at Columbia University.

"Peace is not patriotic," DeGenova began. "Peace is subversive, because peace anticipates a very different world than the one in which we live--a world where the U.S. would have no place."

"U.S. patriotism is inseparable from imperial warfare and white supremacy," he said. "U.S. flags are the emblem of the invading war machine in Iraq today. They are the emblem of the occupying power. The only true heroes are those who find ways that help defeat the U.S. military."

Between DeGenova's condemnation of patriotism and his call for "fragging"--"I wish," he said, "for a million Mogadishus"--his speech provoked many of the professors who spoke later in the night to assert their disagreement

When reading about incidents like this, I can't help thinking of Alfred Hitchcock's Rope. In that movie, two young men kill a friend of theirs, and hide his body "in plain sight" in their apartment while they throw a party---which includes the dead man's father and fiancee.

They do this partly for kicks, partly for the intellectual exercise, and partly because they've taken to heart the theories of one of their old teachers, played by Jimmy Stewart. His theory was that there were some people, generally by virtue of intellect, who were so superior to the common herd of man as to exist on an entirely different plane. These superior people could not be held to the rules that govern the rest of us.

We hear the teacher espouse these theories at the party, where he is smooth and plausible, forceful, authoritative, and smug. Many of the other guests are disapproving, or comically indignant. But Stewart's character enjoys taunting them. He relishes their outrage. He clearly believes that he is superior to them, and enjoys watching their inferior minds shrink before his original, shocking, and revolutionary ideas.

To his credit, when he finds out about the murder, he is horrified, and immediately sees that his ideas have inspired it. Not his ideas, exactly, but his careless, smug, expression of them---designed more to shock, to make him seem a daring and original thinker, than to explore morality.

I don't hold out much hope that DeGenova and others like him will re-assess what they've been saying, even if some of their followers go too far. Not their fault, after all, if some of their listeners run out and try to bomb a military base.

Actually, if I were DeGenova, I'd be a lot more worried that one of my opponents would take my lectures to heart. DeGenova might find himself the one on the wrong end of the rope.

Posted 8:18 PM by Angie Schultz

Local Color

Since I don't have a car, I am usually confined to a small part of Houston. This tends to be true even when I go shopping with Niles (who does have a car). Today we went to run some errands in another part of town, and I saw several things that struck me.

A number of businesses had support-the-troops messages on their signs. A sign-manufacturing company had a very fancy red-white-and-blue sparkly neon sign reading "God Bless America", and a cloth banner saying something about "our heroes at war".

We went to a hotel in which a very small conference was being held. I don't know what it was on; there was no sign and the talks and the conversations in the hall were in Spanish. Several of those people sported yellow ribbons, but that could have been a "peace" gesture. Or, for that matter, something completely different. We also went to a shopping mall that had red-white-and-blue and yellow ribbons tied around its trees. (Niles says he saw something on TV about a yellow ribbon shortage. Here's a story about ribbon shortages in Virginia.)

But the real surprise came when we went to dinner. Niles bought a digital camera, and I've often chided him for not bringing it along. (There was a terrific sunset we could have recorded, for instance.) Then we could have had evidence of the remarkable car we saw.

It was an old brown Oldsmobile, with flames and various things painted on the back. On the hood there was a battle scene. Mickey Mouse flew a shark-painted plane toward some tanks over a field of burning oil wells. There was a sign saying "To Bagdad" [sic] and another reading "France: 500 miles". No, we couldn't quite figure that out either. It was a very busy scene and I don't remember all its elements, but toward the front of the hood was painted GO BUSH.

This report was certainly not brought to you by the Houston Chronicle.

Posted 10:46 AM by Angie Schultz

Columbia's Largest Export: Dope

From the Houston Chronicle today (top item) we find that:

Professor criticized for urging U.S. defeat

NEW YORK -- A Columbia University professor is being criticized for calling for the defeat of U.S. forces during an antiwar "teach-in" on Wednesday. Nicholas De Genova, an assistant professor of anthropology, said he would like to see "a million Mogadishus" -- a reference to the Somali city where American soldiers were ambushed, with 18 killed, in 1993. The crowd of 3,000 was largely silent at the remark. They loudly applauded De Genova later when he said, "If we really (believe) that this war is criminal ... then we have to believe in the victory of the Iraqi people and the defeat of the U.S. war machine." On Thursday, one of the speakers who followed De Genova called the statements "idiotic."

(Note that De Genova made his statements on Wednesday, but it took until Thursday before anyone got around to calling him on it.)

Well, isn't this special. I did some googling on this clown. Here's the Columbia Anthropology Department web site. He teaches Latino Studies, and is interested in "the politics of ethnographic research practice". Huh.

Here he is in full cry at a Columbia "teach-in" on Israel, last year:

"The heritage of the victims of the Holocaust belongs to the Palestinian people. The state of Israel has no claim to the heritage of the Holocaust," claimed Professor of Latino Studies Nicholas De Genova.

He also signed Columbia's Israel divestment petition.

And he's listed on the web pages for the Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy. Says he's working on a book: Latino Optics: Racialization and Citizenship Between Mexicans and Puerto Ricans in Chicago.

"Latino Optics". Hmmm. I'll have to put that in my multicultural physics class.

The "Columbia Underground Listing of Professor Ability" (CULPA; a site where students critique their professors' teaching abilities) has one general comment, mostly favorable; one comment on the Holocaust quote above; and response to that, again mildly favorable to the professor. Note that this last quote says "he makes no secret of his politics". I suppose at Columbia this is considered a good thing. You wouldn't want to hide any agendas under a cloak of impartiality, or anything like that.

By the way, for some reason, these reviews of De Genova are listed under the "General Chem" class. He's not listed in CULPA's anthro department pages.

UPDATE: More, from Newsday. Boy howdy:

The professor, Nicholas De Genova, also called for the defeat of U.S. forces in Iraq and said, "The only true heroes are those who find ways that help defeat the U.S. military." And he asserted that Americans who call themselves "patriots" are white supremacists.

The University is preparing a statement. I shiver with antici--------pation.

UPDATE II: InstaP now mentions this, leading to this long and information-packed post from Eugene Volokh. I know you'll be startled, but Blogspot is acting up again, and the permalinks aren't working. It's the Mar 28, 12:08 PM post. It contains many shameful statements from various professors.

Ah, plus a first-hand account at National Review.

I will sing another refrain of my sad lament: I went into a field where you actually have to have the right answers from time to time, rather than just making up whatever crap suits your fancy. Why, oh why, did I do that?

Posted 8:15 PM by Angie Schultz

Sincerely, Outraged in Berkeley

Alan Murphy of Barcelona, "A Friend of Iberian Notes" has a post on the Typology of Spanish Anti-War Letters (to the editor) up at Europundits. Of course, his post is very amusing and you should go read the whole thing there. This is just a brief summary:

A brief ideological analysis of anti-war letters to the editor across the Spanish press:

1. The "Bleeding Heart-Poor Me" Letter

ESTIMATED PROPORTION OF ANTI-WAR MAIL: 5%

I.e., "war is bad because it keeps me awake at night."

I think we know these next three:

2. The "Yanks are Bad" Letter

ESTIMATED PROPORTION OF ANTI-WAR MAIL: 20%

3. The "Unconditional Pacifist" letter

ESTIMATED PROPORTION OF ANTI-WAR MAIL: 25%

4. The "Think of the Children" Letter

ESTIMATED PROPORTION OF ANTI-WAR MAIL: 15%

For this next one, you must remember that Communism is respectable in Spain. These writers note the disconnect between the government's support for and the people's opposition to the war, which is quite high. Murphy says these people are not quite clear on what a representative democracy means.

5. The "Democracy is revealed as fascism" Letter.

ESTIMATED PROPORTION OF ANTI-WAR MAIL: A worrying 25%

These last, he says, are also confused about democracy. I don't quite understand these people; in the US we might view them as nuts.

6. The "If terrorists can't use violence, how come the state can?" letter

ESTIMATED PROPORTION OF ANTI-WAR MAIL: Fortunately not more than 5%

Murphy invites us to type letters in our home countries. I haven't kept track of how many are which type, so I can't give good percentages, but I can identify them.

1. Think of The Children!

In this case, what's keeping the "bleeding hearts" awake at night is fear for The Children, and the few pacifists we get never fail to mention them. They don't necessarily dwell on the The Children, but do they do let us know that in their exquisite agony they care so very very much for the poor poor people, unlike us bloodthirsty warmongers who are eager to upholster our dens with the supple pelts of Iraqi baayybeees. Constitutes a goodly hunk, maybe 20-25%, of anti-war writers.

2. I'm really pissed off the Republicans won, and I won't let anyone forget it!

This is the subtext of by far the vast majority of anti-war letters. It seems any number of people somehow acquired the notion that we were at the End of History, at least as far as conservatives are concerned. Perhaps that's nearly literally true; since humanity had reached the stage where liberal capitalism triumphed, all that was left was waiting for a few holdout regimes to come around. There was, therefore, no need for a large military, or sharp disagreements with other democracies. Ergo no Republicans would ever be elected again. This crowd is even more enraged by the fact that Bush won on a "technicality", and that the election was so close. If I'd just volunteered to register a few more elderly black folks, or screamed louder at my campus rally, they think, we wouldn't be in this mess.

There are several subtypes:

2A. Republicans are monsters. Surely I needn't explain further?

A small number, mostly from very left-wing university students and professors.

2B. It's all about the oil!

The gold standard. Bush is an oil man. Iraq has oil. Ergo, it's all about the oil. Quod erat demonstrandum, ipso facto, res ipsa loquitur, and other authoritative Latin phrases. These people haven't recovered from the '70s oil embargo.

2C. What will the neighbors think?

Another huge slice of anti-war letters. These are really the People at the End of History. All that multilateralism and diplomacy and playing well with others was going so well, and now that evil Bush---or that dumb Bush and his evil cadre---have ruined it all. These are the people most likely to tell Europeans that they're ashamed to be Americans. I feel a bit sorry for some of them. A lot of them seem to believe that terrorism can be treated as a crime, and that if we were more multilateral other countries would be eager to help us send in some Terror Cops, and try the offenders in Terror Court, where they would of course receive fair sentences with no capital punishment, and they'd be given very humane treatment and education and vocational training. And this would end terrorism.

I would say at least 50% of all anti-war letters fall into either 2B or 2C.

The next two categories are extremely unlikely to be Republicans, but they don't belong in the Bush Hater's Club because they'd be making the same arguments if Gore were president.

3. War only profits the war profiteers!

This is a blast from the past. The only reason we have wars is because of armament manufacturers. If I recall, this was a popular stance during (or before) WWI, WWII, Vietnam, and the Cold War. I include it only for historical context; I have heard almost nothing of this argument recently.

4. Address the Root Causes!

We know this drill. Poverty breeds hopelessness, which breeds frustration, which breeds terrorism, which breeds...etc. Cycles of various things are often invoked. This is not an unreasonable stance, if you believe that the world's people are all holding out your hands to you beseechingly, and only you, yes, YOU, Mr. and Mrs. American, can help their plight. In this view, Poor People who oppress their own do not exist. Only white oilmen can be villains. These people, in childhood, got up too early on Sunday mornings, found nothing on television, and were forced to watch badly-produced religious soap operas and Christian Bible stories. Many have forgotten the religion, but they remember the lessons.

5. Pull up the drawbridge!

These people write only a small percentage of the letters, but they are the primary opposition from the Right. Don't go putting our people in danger. War will only inflame Arab Street. What we should do instead is to cancel all foreign aid (especially Israel's), withdraw our troops from everywhere, and halt immigration. Oh, and build a fence between the US and Mexico.

Conspicuous by their absence have been those arguments which I've held from time to time. I did not always think this war was necessary; not even for months after September 11. Unfortunately, my anti-war arguments involved on-the-one-hand yet on-the-other arguments, conditions, weighing of probabilities, etc. They didn't involve sloppy emotions, sputtering indignation, conspiracy theories, or caustic hyperbole.

Which is probably why those types of letters don't get printed in the paper.

Posted 5:21 PM by Angie Schultz

Auntie's Dingy Laundry

Apparently American criticism of the BBC has caused a certain flutter in some areas. For example, Dr. Frank brings us word that:

British Spin and Harry Steele respond to American BBC-bashing. Both of them hit the heads of many nails.

Those aren't nails, Frank. Those are their thumbs.

It's no wonder that the British don't see the sneering tone Lileks spoke of; if British Spin is any indication, Sneer is a widely-spoken language in Britain:

Quit whining abut the BBC

I mean come on. Forget 60 years of relentlessly clear reporting. Forget the fact that the BBC has never been a simple propaganda tool for the British government, instead aspiring to be something more complex and more ambitious, a reporting of objectivity and fairness of the world around it. BBC reporters dare to be rude to Generals, they question whether things are going well, they curl their lips, they sneer, they pronounce words diferently to Americans, They.. *shudder* give air time to the Iraqi's.

"See here, my good man, we've been at this broadcasting business for sixty years, and we don't need any upstart colonial johnnies to teach us how to suck eggs."

The purpose of reporters is not to lob up soft ones for the masterful politicians to knock out of the ground. it's to ask tough questions, to challenge presumptions, to probe, to push boundaries. What the Warbloggers seem dislike is good journalism, rather than the breathless repeating of lines to take.

I won't say I'm not irritated by the dimwittedness of American reporters' questions. As far as I can tell, the pattern goes something like this:

American: Saddam seems to have spread his forces out, dispersing them among the civilian population. Do you think this will make your job more difficult?

BBC: Now that the Iraqis are prosecuting a guerilla war, aren't you in danger of becoming involved in a Vietnam-style quagmire?

While the former is a stupid question, I don't see the latter as an improvement on it, even though it does "probe" and "push boundaries".

America and the UK are invading a foriegn country. You seriously expect the BBC not to report the official Iraqi reaction in depth?

Swell. Does the BBC curl its lip at Tariq Aziz and ask him where the hell Saddam is? Does it ask him about their little adventures with the human shields? Does it ask him if he can prove that the American dead we saw on Iraqi TV were really Americans, because this is powerful propaganda for him?

Now, I can't watch the BBC anymore (we don't get it on cable). Maybe they are doing that. But during the Afghan war I didn't notice them asking any tough, probing questions of the Taliban's ambassador in Pakistan.

The BBC's finest hour in that regard came when they reported that the Taliban were claiming to have shot down a B-52 but, the newsreader cautioned, they did not place much credence in this claim. I had to laugh. They sometimes uncritically reported some rather ridiculous Taliban claims, but even they weren't buying that one.

It's no wonder British Spin has nailed his own thumb, since most of the rest of his post is flailing at various straw men. The BBC's critics want only reports of cheering, flower-throwing crowds, and not of any bad news. They want censorship!

Ask yourself this question. Despite the BBC's terrible bias, the image of America abroad was incredibly strong 18 months ago. Has the BBC (and their cowardly media allies) become so much more anti-American to drive this? Or just maybe, is the BBC World service reflecting a scepticism about US motives that is shared by virtually every nation outside the USA and asking the questions those people want to see asked?

Possibly the latter. This, despite what British Spin seems to believe, is not a good thing. If the BBC is supposed to remain so impartial as to forget that its British (see below), then it shouldn't be pandering to worldwide paranoia, either, but maintaining an indpendent aloofness. If, of course, they're still hanging on to that glorious higher ambition.

In Sydney I got Fox News, CNN, BBC World, and Sky News Australia. Of those four, the most sensationalistic was of course Fox, but next came the BBC. That's the Beeb's real problem: it is pandering to whatever will pull in the viewers, in fact betraying the impartial legacy that British Spin seems to value so much. When there was sympathy to be milked, they were there. When it was clear there was going to be a war, they jumped on the anti-war bandwagon, until the war was won, and then there was John Simpson, Liberator of Kabul. (No thanks to the bloody Yanks, of course.)

I don't think that the directors of the BBC actually sit around and try to think of ways to make the US look bad, but I do think that the reporters and writers have enough anti-American bias that it can't help leaking through. Or, given the pandering, they don't bother.

Frankly, When I watch Fox and CNN and (to a lesser extent Sky), I'm shocked at how.. gullible they sound. Every uncorrobrated report is carried as if fact, and then completely rowed back from a few hours later without any sense of shame. Call it the Florida syndrome. I'd be surprised if anyone outside the US regards them as a reliable and objective media source.

As he goes on to say, this is just a factor of 24 hour news. While I agree that they ought to be careful about verifying sources and not repeating wild rumors, I don't see that broadcasting early reports, then retracting them, is particularly bad. Certainly it isn't "gullible". I suppose that if you take every word that comes from the TV as carved in stone, you might be confused, but that makes you gullible. Whenever I see something sensational on the TV, I remain skeptical until it's confirmed. Perhaps British Spin should take this approach, rather than regarding whatever the BBC emits as the Word from on High.

(I might add that the BBC had its share of mistaken reports during the Afghan war as well. Perhaps British Spin isn't watching the same BBC I was.)

Oh,. and Sky are now reporting that there is NO Chemical Weapons facility.. So the BBC were right on that one then.

Er, I wouldn't be so quick to gloat over that. There's been precious little information about that. In fact, I always wonder why, of the many tough and probing questions the press could ask at the CENTCOM briefings, they don't ask more about that.

Harry Steele doesn't add much to the debate, contenting himself with urging British Spin on, but he does indulge in a little pop psychology:

I have been pondering what has been behind this sudden wave of criticism of old Auntie Beeb from the blogosphere and, at the risk of going into amateur psychology, I think there are some possible explanations that can be offered:

In the case of Andrew Sullivan a hard right US-based British expat commentator, it is clearly part of his going native ritual.

But for the real Americans I think there are other things at work. For a start the idea that you can have a public broadcasting service which is widely watched, popular and quite often very good, goes against everything that the US right stand for. How can it work? How can people like it? There are no advertisements, the market is not really operating and it is a public venture which is not censored by the state? Surely some mistake?

Ironically they are actually calling for a form of state censorship by constantly harping on about how the BBC are asking tough questions, broadcasting Iraqi statements and even allowing critics of the war to be allowed on to the airwaves. They want the Beeb to broadcast our government's line. Well I think we'll leave that kind of thinking to the Iraqi regime.

Note: Sullivan is "hard right". This is the trouble with some of the British: everyone to the right of Tony Blair is "right-wing" or "hard right".

I don't think many Americans particularly care (or even know) that the BBC is state-subsidized, though I have heard a few use that as an explanation of its bias---a sort of reversal of Harry's explanation, in which the unaccountable, publicly-funded mandarin class (which in normal times includes yours truly) has a bias against societies in which they'd have to get real jobs. An interesting theory, but unconvincing.

Both Harry and British Spin have new stuff up in response to each other questions, and further comment by others, it's more thrashing of straw men. No one expects that various Iraqis or critics of the war not be allowed to speak. But if the Beeb is going to be impartial, it would be nice if they were as "tough" and "probing" with the Iraqis as with the Americans. I guess, in a way, it's a compliment; they have faith that Tommy Franks is not really going to whip out his pistol and shoot them---something you're not entirely confident of with the Iraqis.

In the comments to Harry's post, British Spin says, in part:

I say kudos to the BBC for refusing to be a simple mouthpiece for the British national interst.

Being a mouthpiece for British national interest and for the current British government are two different things. It's admirable that the British government---different British governments over many years---funds a news organization which does not necessarily toe the government line. But surely it's not too much to ask for the BBC to remember that it is British, that they serve the British people, and, yes, ought to consider their interests.

The fact that British Spin is so contemptuous of the very idea suggests that he's one of those people who are so pure as to have given up thinking in terms of nations and their interests.

I have more, but I'll cut this post off now.

Posted 3:40 PM by Angie Schultz

Salam Pax on CNN

Oh my goodness! They just mentioned Salam Pax on CNN Headline News. They called him a "mysterious observer". This was in their teaser at the half hour mark; they haven't actually done the report yet.

UPDATE: OK, the segment's run now, at 5:30pm Central. This was on their "Hotwired" segment, Erica Hill reporting. They said that Salam is providing "compelling reports", and noted that "Salam Pax" is Arabic and Latin for "peace". Said that Salam is a 29-year-old architect (which I didn't know, must not have read that post). Many people have wondered whether he's for real, they said, but mentioned Diane's efforts to validate his identity (such as it is). I think they said the two had an "online relationship", which is technically true, but generally construed differently.

They showed pictures of the webpage (the latest post, unfortunately none of the ones he's put up with interesting pictures), and gave out the URL. Hill read it wrong (spelling it out dear_read rather than dear_raed), but they put it up correctly on the screen. Moments later they verbally corrected the spelling.

I never discovered whether he found Raed. I thought this was a "missing" friend, but some posts I read indicated that he was just abroad, and recent posts speak of Raed wandering around town with Salam and another friend.

Up at the Headline News site, the last "Hotwired" segment they have is March 12.

UPDATE II: By the way, Hill said the word "blog" without bothering to explain what that meant. We're now officially obsolete.

UPDATE III: I meant to say that I hoped Saddam's goons have their hands full with other matters at present, with no energy to spare hunting Salam down.

UPDATE IV, 3/25/03: Now the BBC has gotten in on the act. Their tech reporter did some digging on Salam's email headers.

Posted 2:06 PM by Angie Schultz

BBC Pile On

Andrew Sullivan has decided to take on the BBC. In that link he reports several emails he's received from Americans who are shocked at the BBC's bias. In this one he says:

I'm somewhat thrilled my little obsession of the past couple months has begun to find new converts. Not exactly my persuasive powers. More due to the fact that suddenly the BBC is being broadcast live to Americans. That funny, subtle sound you hear is of a few thousand jaws dropping...

(There are links to other blogs in that post too.)

Well, welcome to the blogosphere, Andrew, where we've been on the case for more than just the past couple of months.

For example, there's a whole blog dedicated to sniffing out BBC bias. Plus there's a BBC Watch. And there's this sporadically-updated page on political manipulation of the BBC.

Today's Lileks is on the BBC again today.

Not to mention the fact that I've been venting frustration at them almost from the very day I started this blog. My very first hint that the BBC may be just a weensy bit biased came after I'd had cable TV in Sydney for about a week. It came with BBC World Service. They have a program on the environment---can't remember its name---and one episode dealt with global warming (possbly every episode deals with global warming). Naturally it mentioned Kyoto, and Bush's FAILURE to sign it, "...even when global warming hit Bush's home state...". The video they showed over these words was the flooding in Houston caused by Tropical Storm Allison in 2000. It's Houston! We get Tropical Storms! They bring lots of rain! It floods! It was like that before the coming of the White Man; it did not arise as a result of the Industrial Revolution. But, no, anything to spin their pet agendas.

About two weeks later came September 11. They were OK---even sometimes a bit maudlin---during the coverage of the attacks. But when it came time for the war, they fell into the mode we've come to know and mock. A parade of experts trooped across their set, pontificating on what the American military would do. About 90% of these were dismissive of our capabilities.

In this early post (seen by almost no one!) I explain what inspired me to start this blog. Scroll down to the imaginary BBC interview with the defense expert "pillock". The fellow I was most thinking of while writing this was Dan Plesch, Pillock-in-Chief.

It got even worse when they showed their reporters on the scene in the US. I remember vividly their correspondent reporting on the anthrax mailings in New York. He spoke earnestly into his microphone about the sense of panic that was gripping the city. Meanwhile, on the street behind him, people strolled, walked their dogs, played with their children. A beautiful sunny, panic-filled day. The BBC's America sounded almost nothing like the one I knew. Finally, their constant refrain of PANIC led me to email several folks at home, just to double-check. Nope, no panic. The BBC continued (and apparently continues) to exist in an alternate universe, very like our own, but not quite.

To continue, there's the ghastly "Dateline:London" and its frequent guest, slime-covered Abdel-Bari Atwan. And just recently I used a BBC article to demonstrate my theory of the US as Prime Mover---the strange idea among some that only the US's actions matter and are subject to criticism; other entities cannot be faulted by the reactions they are "forced" to make in response.

And here's the BBC trembling in its wing-tips over the frightening implications of America's deep Christian faith.

When I went googling for BBC references on the blog, I found I had poisoned this well by displaying the tag line "More accurate than the BBC!" --- ExPat Pundit. Actually, what Brian said was this:

I'd love to have the documentation in the form of a transcript from the BBC, but in my experience Angie is far more accurate than that organization anyway.

There you have it. An unimpeachable source.

Posted 10:39 PM by Angie Schultz

Press Briefing (and Swirlies)

Steven Chapman dares to criticize the holy Lileks's completely accurate description of the BBC reporters:

NPR is running . . . the BBC. It's interesting, listening to these guys - I'm unsure how it's possible to sneer the entire time you're speaking. I fear the announcer's face will stay that way. Perhaps you can recognize an old Beeb hand by the permanently curled lip. I've tuned in twice in half an hour; both times they were talking about the FAILURE to get Saddam, and what this FAILURE means for the war which might be hindered by this initial FAILURE...

The interesting part is not in Steven's post, but in his comments, where he says:

Incidentally, it's been noted over here that in press conferences the 'challenging' questions are mostly asked by non-US reporters. I'm not quite sure what was meant by 'challenging' but I've seen zillions of press conferences from the Pentagon, State Dept, White House, in Afghanistan and now in Iraq and I'd have to agree that the US reporters' questions are noticeably softer than the rest. I've even on occasion noticed the person at the podium get somewhat snippy with the non-US questioners.

Huh. Maybe it's because the non-US reporters' questions frequently boil down to: "Now that you've begun prosecuting your vicious and illegal war, and found that the Iraqis will actually shoot back, and you've lost simply, er, a handful of men, and have killed two civilians' donkeys, don't you think it's time you admitted that you are in a Vietnam-style quagmire that will humble the United States and cause the fearsome Arab Street to rise against you in wave after wave of terrorist attacks? Oh, and I have a followup about the brutal Afghan winter."

Now, there are only three possible answers to that:
1) "No."
2) "Fuck you."
3) Click BANG! "Next question?"

So what's the point in asking the flipping question? Is it to see how uncomfortable you can make the guy while he tries to politely answer your stupid question? Is showing up at the press conference cutting into your drinking time? Or is Qatar alcohol-free, and drying out is making you all cranky?

Here's the sort of thing I mean. This is from the 3/22/03 CENTCOM press briefing. First three questions are from American reporters, and then there's this one:

Q General, Jeff Meade (ph), Sky News. Can I ask you to talk to the blitz on Baghdad. How does it help you to be regarded as liberators by the Iraqi people when they are being terrified by that display of ordnance? And also bearing in mind that some of the targets may have suspect military value, because if they are obvious regime buildings they would have long ago been evacuated.

Now, you can read the long-winded response Franks gave him yourself. What would Tommy really like to have said?-------

"The people were so terrified of our ordnance that some of them came out into the streets to watch the show. And how is it that you know so much about where the Iraqi military is? Do you think they don't have infrastructure, that they can just do their planning and communicating in a barn somewhere? Guards, take this man away and find out what he knows about the Iraqis' plans."

"Next?"

Q ... ITB (ph) News of London. General Franks, what can you tell us about the success in attacking so-called regime targets? What can you tell us what you know of the status, whereabouts or health of Saddam Hussein? And what do you say to those people who say that the people who are most likely to be shocked and awestruck by the shock are the Iraqi civilians you claim to be liberating?

"Well, Mr. So-Called Journalist, I don't know yet whether Saddam Hussein continues to waste oxygen, but we did hit the bunker where he was staying. As for the rest, you weren't listening to what I told that last fella, were you?"

Q General Franks -- (inaudible) [Jonathan -- A.S.] Marcus from BBC World Service...One of the most striking things in your briefing was your comment several regular Iraqi army divisions have surrendered or their leaders have surrendered...the troops have abandoned their weapons, the soldiers have gone home. You showed us a picture of troops in the desert -- it wasn't a great picture as far as I was concerned -- I couldn't see much about it. This is a very important propaganda issue -- if Iraqi forces hear through a whole variety of means that the units are just simply melting away...That would be information that would be very useful for you to have imparted by the world's media. What further information, what further evidence can you give us that leads us to accept that probably tens of thousands or many thousand Iraqi troops are simply melting away or going home?

"I've told you what's true and if you don't want to believe it that's up to you. Feel free to go count every captured soldier and every one still at large. Are you afraid there won't be enough corpses for you to report in a short war?"

That one prompted a letter to and comment from Andrew Sullivan. One of Sullivan's readers was astonished that Marcus had essentially said that he didn't know why he should report what Franks was telling them about Iraqi surrenders, given that it would just be propaganda for the US. I wonder whether they're such tough guys with the Iraqis. CNN was kicked out of Iraq for not being obsequious enough, if you can imagine.


Q First of all, thank you for being with us finally. Do you have any personal message for the families of the casualties? And for the second question, do you think Iraqi President Saddam Hussein would become a black shadow like Osama bin Laden is right now?

"I think Osama is a black shadow on a cave wall right now. As for the casualties, I already said what I had to say about that at the beginning. Who the hell am I, Oprah? I'm not going to sit here and cry, if that's what you mean."

[Actually this reporter, who was a foreigner, probably meant the Iraqi casualties. Franks took him to mean the US casualties and went right on to the next question. And he did say things about the US casualties in the beginning. This is where I turned the conference off, by the way.]


Q This is Li Jingxian (ph) from Shanghai TV, China. General Franks, it was reported that more than 200 Iraqi civilians have been killed or injured ever since the war began. Do you have any comment on that? And what kind of measurements has the coalition taken or is going to take in order to minimize the civilian casualties during the military action? Thank you very much.

"Two hundred, huh? That's less than your government killed deliberately at Tiananmen Square."

Q (Off mike.) There's an impression here in the region that you're having more trouble than you're willing to admit, that you're meeting stiffer resistance than you're willing to admit. One case being brought to mind is Umm Qasr. If you can talk about that.

And yesterday, following the air strikes, the Iraqi information minister said that your forces are going to be decapitated and routed. If you can comment on that. Thank you.

"Yes, it's true. The enemy is firing real bullets at us. But we thought of everything, including this remote possibility. My comment on the Iraqi information minister is that you can feel free to take him at face value if you want to. I'm not gonna."

Q (Off mike.) We are getting close from the fourth day of war, and until now, we can't see any sign of weapons of mass destruction, we can't see anyone using of weapons of mass destruction by Iraq. Was it a big lie or just a cover to justify your invasion of Iraq and to remove its regime, which still cannot use any kind of these weapons to defend itself against your attacks? Thank you.

"Oops, you have found us out. I knew that if we didn't discover any WMDs after ninety minutes, you sharp-witted lads of the press would expose our dastardly scheme. Yes, yes it was all a lie. In fact, the whole war was so that Poppy Bush could get hold of Saddam's magnificent feather boa collection. sigh And now that you know that, I'll have to kill you all. Guards!"

The sad thing is that I've not had to go digging for choice stupid questions---they made up about half the press briefing. And the pattern is pretty clear. American media asked questions designed to elicit actual information. Sometimes they were softball questions, but at least they were generally questions a person could answer.

The foreigners' questions were not generally meant to elicit information; they were designed to make a propaganda statement. I don't know why they bothered, since their organizations' editorial writers make all the facts up back at the home office anyway.

[I will admit that many of the affiliations were not recorded, so I can't say for certain it was mostly foreigners who were making statements with their questions. But there was certainly a pattern.]

The next day followed much the same pattern. Tommy Franks, probably in disgust, stayed away and let John Abizaid handle them. The fourth question asked if this wasn't a new Vietnam.

After that, he mostly called on Americans, and as a result, real information flowed. Though he did call on Al Jazeera and got an actual real question rather than a disguised accusation.

And apparently, if I understand Chapman correctly, the press (and public?) in Britain is sitting around congratulating themselves on the "challenging" nature of their questions, in contrast to those old-fashioned who-what-where-when wheezes the dumb Yanks come up with.

UPDATE: Today's briefing was much the same, with even fewer foreigners called on. We had one sneering Brit whose question I don't remember, one Chinese who asked if the glorious Iraqi people weren't rising up against the American imperialist aggressors, and a guy from Iraqi TV who clearly wished he had asked the Chinese guy's question (the Iraqis are not nearly as practiced as the Chinese in revolutionary rhetoric), but who settled for asking if the reports that the coalition had taken much of the southern countryside weren't "Lies! All lies!"

Posted 9:21 PM by Angie Schultz

The Latter-Day Saints

[No, this is not about Mormons.]

Here's a brilliant article on the website of the Foreign Policy Research Institute, via Entre Nous. As usual when I say something is brilliant, I mean "I thought of that a long time ago, but never got around to writing it up." The author, Adam Garfinkle, argues that the behavior of many who are virulently opposed to the war resembles that of religious fanatics.

First he carefully distinguishes those who are ambivalent about the war, and those who are certain that war is wrong. The former, he notes, are rarely found out protesting in the streets.

The vast majority of people out in the street protesting, however, do not see the Iraq question as a"near" thing, and they are not humble. They are stridently certain not only that going to war is unwise, but that it is also morally wrong and even criminal. They have not done...careful analytical thinking...They have rather chosen categorical and judgmental moralist language peppered with apocalyptic accusations and apocryphal predictions.

To understand these typical characteristics of the messages being emitted from street demonstrations, again certain distinctions must be made. For present purposes, two are critical.

First, distinguish between organizers and followers. In all recent major demonstrations, the organizing elements, both in the United States and in Europe, have been of the radical leftist.

...

Second, distinguish between what goes on in the United States and what goes on in Europe.

Americans, he says, protest for a variety of reasons, including knee-jerk Bush-hatred, and the longing for the glory that was the Sixties. This is also true of Europeans, he says, but they have other motivations as well:

In Europe, all of these sentiments and motives are also found, along with two others. The first is a visceral and often irrational anti-Americanism that is growing in rough proportion to the increasing gap between U.S. power and that of the European Union countries. The second is a desire to expunge though street catharsis a deep sense of guilt over a European colonial past now held responsible for the terrible problems of the Middle East and other"third world" areas. These two sentiments vary from country to country. In France, for example, there is a paucity of guilt, but a superabundance of anti-Americanism; in Britain it tends to be the other way 'round.

In short, while a prospective war in Iraq is the pretext for the demonstrations we have lately seen, it is rarely the cause...It's about religion.

Irrational anti-Americanism and post-colonial guilt are especially prevalent in Europe because of the decline of traditional religion, he says. What he doesn't get around to claiming is that they are less popular in the US because tradition religion is still strong here.

Many antiwar activists seem to need the belief in the equivalent of a moral apocalypse for reasons of personal commitment; the more portentous and dramatic the stake, the more praiseworthy one's dedication becomes and the more unequivocal one's commitment must be.

This is the nub of the argument. Many people (especially young people) need some cause to identify with, something with which they can identify, sacrifice for, live for. Or die for.

This backdrop to antiwar activism helps explain why so many activists and marchers are oblivious to rational argument. It is not only that so many are ignorant of the subject, it is rather that knowledge is subordinated to feelings. When people have a strong need to believe something, mere facts are powerless to stop them.

This is reminiscent of Lee Harris's essay "Al Qaeda's Fantasy Ideology", in which he argues that the events of September 11 were not designed to provoke any particular response from us. They were not meant to get us to accede to Al Qaeda's demands. They were instead more in the manner of ideological theater, a gesture made because, within the ideology, it's the right thing to do, rather than a thing which will bring about a certain end.

Although I don't believe Harris says it, one could also imagine the bombings as a religious ritual, with the religion in question being not Islam per se, but a fantasy ideology which is based in Islam and pan-Arab nationalism.

So what do protestors have to do with this? In his essay, Harris relates an illuminating story from his youth, in the late Sixties. He and a friend both opposed the Vietnam War, but Harris thought that the protests ought to be restricted to gestures that might convince others of the justice of their cause. His friend had a different idea:

My friend did not disagree with me as to the likely counterproductive effects of [a disruptive] demonstration. Instead, he argued that this simply did not matter. His answer was that even if it was counterproductive, even if it turned people against war protesters, indeed even if it made them more likely to support the continuation of the war, he would still participate in the demonstration and he would do so for one simple reason -- because it was, in his words, good for his soul.

What I saw as a political act was not, for my friend, any such thing. It was not aimed at altering the minds of other people or persuading them to act differently. Its whole point was what it did for him.

(Emphasis in original.)

This is what drives people to block city streets even though it doesn't endear them to the populace; to get naked for peace in lieu of reasoned argument, and to vandalize national landmarks in a self-indulgent temper tantrum.

They're not really seeking to change anyone's mind (although it's possible not all of them have realized that); they are performing the arcane religious rites of their sect---rites which, if performed properly, will get them into Heaven, even if they worsen the conditions the rites were protesting.

(A good example would be the people who thought it was a swell idea to liken slaughtering animals with the Holocaust. I'm sure there are many PETA members who consider this campaign a big success, even though it disgusted many people, and would continue to consider a success even if it led to increased meat consumption. But, you know, they made a statement, right? They, like, Spoke Out. And that's what's important.)

Back to Garfinkle:

A society's being "secular" does not obviate the social impulse toward or need for religion; that impulse merely migrates to other places, the most popular one of the twentieth century having been politics...

Or, as Niles points out, football.

As G.K. Chesterton said, "When a man stops believing in God, he doesn't believe in nothing; he'll believe in anything."

I hate this quote. It's not true, at least not generally. Many, many people I know are atheists, and yet remain skeptical of, well, just about anything. In fact, a better quote might have been, "When a man stops believing in God, he won't believe anything, even if it bites him on the ass." (Note, must polish that.) That is, atheists tend to be a very cynical and suspicious lot, in my opinion.

On the other hand, there are people who do not so much stop believing in God as stop believing in what they were taught. They still feel a need for spirituality, but somehow find that the faiths they grew up in are old and raggedy, and in need of exchange. In California, I knew a woman whose family were Deep South fundamentalist Christians, one of those types who tend to get physical and emotional during services, in the grip of the Power of the Lord.

Naturally that simply wouldn't do for her. So she went shopping for a new religion. She told me that a friend of hers had gotten good satisfaction from Islam, and she was interested in learning more. Her family's Christianity was constricting, dogmatic, judgmental, even cruel---but Islam would set her free.

No doubt people turn to religions, or switch religions, for their harmless qualities, such as the comfort of trusting in an all-knowing father, or hope of an afterlife, or for, as Garfinkel says, to belong to something greater than themselves.

But there are also negative aspects of religion as well, which apparently fill some people's needs. For example, there's the desire to be part of an elect, the need to look down on outsiders, and the comfort of a dogma to follow. It's these aspect which I see most in the current political climate.

It's fashionable (in the blogosphere) to call this political bent "leftist", but I'm uncomfortable doing that. That seems too pat a label to slap on it. And besides, the mindset I'm talking about seems to have come unmoored from leftist philosophy---it certainly has from liberal philosophy.

(If you take long enough over writing a post, you'll come across something that makes your point better than you do. In my case, it's this Stanley Kurtz piece in NRO from May of 2001 (stumbled just now, again via Entre Nous, who is on my wavelength). Kurtz says pretty much what Garfinkle has, except that he does not confine his examination to anti-war protesters, as Garfinkle does.)

Posted 12:14 PM by Angie Schultz

Shiny Side Out

In a shockingly appropriate gesture, a bunch of anti-war protesters showed up at a US base in Britain clad in tinfoil.

Here's a notice about the "Foil the Base" protest.

Menwith Hill plays a crucial role in war on Iraq. As the largest electronic monitoring station in the world it picks up communications from satellites covering the Middle East it even won an award for its eavesdropping in the last Gulf War. It is the brains of any attack on Iraq.

Menwith is also a key base for the project of long-term military aggression - Star Wars.

To foil the base disrupt satellite signals at the base - there has to be as much foil in the air as possible. Bring foil kites, foil balloons, foil puppets and use your imagination!

"Remember, satellites control GPS-guided bombs. When the satellites can't communicate with the ground, the bombs go off course, and you know what that means. Right! More Iraqi corpses for our cause! Hurray!

To be safe, we should wear our foil at all times. It keeps those Zionist Nazi weather-producing mind control rays from communicating with the chips they've implanted in our bums."

If I find a photo, I'll link to it.

Courtesy Mark Holland, commenting on LGF.

Posted 10:15 AM by Angie Schultz

Just a Reminder

Check out this picture from "Reuters", taken at the protest
today outside Fairford AFB in Gloucestershire (where B-52s are based).

Now, remember. They're anti-war, NOT pro-Saddam. Just so we don't lose
sight of that. Lord knows, "Saddam Kills" would not be accurate.

Posted 10:50 AM by Angie Schultz

Soaped Opera House

The other day two intensely stupid shits climbed the Sydney Opera House and painted "No War" on one of its sails in big red letters. (Picture accompanies article.)

That's not just paint up there on the Opera House, it's some sort of fancy-schmancy tiling. It makes beautiful gold and white patterns when the sun hits it just right. So it's not like they can just paint over it and it'll be OK. According to this story, it will cost $AU25,000 to clean it up, which is about US$15,000. That's a lot less than I expected.

The Sydney Morning Herald has some rough video (can't find the link anymore) of an interview with one of them, Will Saunders. When asked about the trouble he was in with the law, he said that he had a "clear defense" in that he'd done a wrong in order to prevent a much greater wrong.

Gosh, he's right! I mean, by doing their Voodoo Pixie dance and defacing a national landmark, they've magically brought the war to a screeching halt!

Oh, wait, we don't live in the Voodoo Pixie universe, so it doesn't work that way.

But...but...George Bush will see that in his morning paper, and think, "Wow! Two guys have painted "NO WAR" on the Sydney Opera House, so they must be really opposed! The depths of their passion have convinced me like no rational argument could have! Bring the troops home!"

No, guess it's not going to work like that, either.

But, of course, you didn't do this so George Bush would see it; you did it so John Howard would see it. When Howard heard about it, he said, "My, they must be very serious about their anti-war stance if they would go so far as to paint the Opera House. I've not given any sort of serious consideration to this thing at all! Spared nary a thought for it! How can I not learn from a couple of juvenile pranksters who've just cost my government a big wad of cash! Everybody stand down!"

Hmmm...no, won't work like that, either.

You didn't do this to "prevent a greater wrong", because you knew that there was no way you, personally, could. No, you just wanted the whole world to know the depths of your passion on this subject, and rather than renting a billboard, you decided you'd deface a national landmark and cost Australians a great deal of money to clean it up. You've garnered worldwide attention for a self-indulgent display of petulance. You've pissed on the carpet in front of the adults because nobody was paying any attention to you. "Look at me! Look at me! I matter! I am powerful!"

When asked about the clean-up, Saunders said he was sorry about that, and he'd be glad to clean it up himself, except that he didn't think he'd be allowed back up there. Smart thinking.

From the article:

Saunders said he was ``very much in need of a cup of tea'' after he was released by police.

No worries. They'll probably be standing you rounds of drinks up in Epping, mate.

PRE-PUBLICATION UPDATE: I am disappointed, but unsurprised, to find that I was quite right about that last. Some people are not only unclear on the difference between protest and vandalism, but seem oblivious to the danger that what is right for one is right for all. For example, few seem to have grasped that NO WAR is no more valid a cause than NO GST, RELEASE THE ASYLUM SEEKERS, FREE MUMIA, or SAVE IRAQ; KILL SADDAM. So I guess we can just turn the Opera House into a giant graffiti "tunnel".

Via Tim Blair.

UPDATE II: This article says the paint is nearly gone. I feared that the paint would stain the tiles, and that if they managed to clean it off they'd be left with a pink ghost. Apparently not. Whew!

Posted 4:24 PM by Angie Schultz

Sound Advice for the Unsound

Are you an leftist anti-war pundit? Are you worried sick that the war will turn out to be a smashing success? Sure there'll be few American casualties? Terrified there'll be few Iraqi casualties? Wondering what you'll write about after the war? Well, here's some sage advice from Dear Abby---er, I mean---Dr. Ridgely:

No mea culpa. The first thing you must realize is that we on the left never, ever admit we're wrong. Let this be your touchstone...

...

Suggest that it's sinister. Intone ominously about "big oil interests" without ever really saying what you mean. Say that you're "disappointed in" and "deeply saddened by" displays of "patriotism bordering on jingoism." This war heralds a new "dark time." Mention a "conspiracy of shadowy economic interests."

...

Belittle/minimize the achievement. This is sneer-and-curled-lip territory. "What's to cheer about? This was only the Iraqi military, after all-a third-rate power. Hurrah."

...

Change the subject. This tactic is always worth a column or two...wonder if the U.S. is ready to tackle the "much tougher task" of taking on North Korea. Venture afield and resurface the "evils" of "globalization" or of environmental doom. There's a lot of material here-remember global warming and the Kyoto Treaty?

...

Congratulate yourself and don't apologize. This should be a centerpiece column for you and should contain the words "peace" and "children" at least three times. Useful phrases: "It's never wrong to stand for peace." "How many Iraqi children would be alive today if peace had prevailed?"...Focus on what you, yourself, "feel." Work yourself and your emotions into the piece and talk about your reactions to the war. Talk of your own "shame"...

This last is Margo Kingston's special turf. The sneer-and-curled lip approach will be taken by George Monbiot, just before he changes the subject.

Mark Morford will use them all, sometimes switching tactics in the middle of a sentence. Take care you don't get whiplash.

There's much more.

UPDATE: Huh, and here's a column in a similar vein, somewhat shorter. Don't know when it was written, unless the 020503 in the URL is the date. Author's a goofy-lookin' feller (that hair!) with a funny name. Lilacs, or something like that.

Posted 7:27 AM by Angie Schultz

Give Me That Old Time Religion

Whenever you see an article titled "America's deep Christian faith" on the BBC, you know that the horseshit is going to fly thick and fast. So don your protective gear.

(The author is Justin Webb, a Beeb correspondent living in the US.)

Our correspondent gives a personal view on the importance of faith and religious belief in American life.

Come with me to an America---let alone a Washington---you do not recognize.

My wife and I do not believe in God.

Nor do I. Remember that as you read this.

The Bush administration hums to the sound of prayer. Prayer meetings take place day and night.

This line was so good they used it twice, and made a sidebar of it.

According to that faith there is such a thing as heaven - 86% of Americans, we are told by the pollsters, believe in heaven.

But much more striking to me, and much more pertinent to current world events, is the fact that 76% or three out of four people you meet on any American street believe in hell and the existence of Satan.

They believe that the devil is out to get you. That evil is a force in the world - a force to be engaged in battle.

This, I think, is where a lot of foreigners get it wrong, and to my mind they do so deliberately.

I suppose most of my relatives believe in Hell and the devil, but Hell's just a place bad people go to when they die, and Satan reigns there. I know there are people who say things like "the devil made me do it" seriously, but I don't think there are many who believe that Satan actually walks the earth looking for ways to turn men to evil.

In particular, I don't believe Bush and his advisors do. When Bush talks about "evil", he's talking about natural human "evil"---cruelty on such a scale that it requires a new vocabulary.

I tried to write that sentence to be more specific, but I've found that I don't have the words. I groped for words that would mean "vast, deliberate, senseless, and overwhelming cruelty", but found that I could only describe it in apocalyptic terms: evil, wickedness. I tried for "failings": "cruelty on such a scale that it trascends ordinary human failings". Bah. Not only does that still sound religious, it sounds like one of those too-forgiving suburban religions which could do no better than regard Hussein as a man of "many failings".

When you abandon old-time religious rhetoric, you are left with only the most clammy and flaccid words for great wrongs [see, religion again], the sort of detached, impersonal terms a school counselor might use in referring to a rambunctious child: "Young Saddam has great charisma and is a natural leader, but he has an rather an inflated view of his own abilities, and an overweening ego. His intense need for friends and followers leads him into hyperaggression, especially with some of the weaker youngsters. We recommend Saddam be placed into a more structured environment with greater adult interaction and more attention to discipline..."

You see how this sort of thing is inadequate for a situation like Iraq. But we seem compelled to either use this watery language, or the sterner, religiously-based language of Good and Evil, Right and Wrong, Heaven and Hell.

To be clear: I don't think you need to be particularly religious to say that Saddam (or, if cannot recognize a villain until he is safely dead---Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot) is "evil". Nor do I believe that when religious people say that Saddam is evil, they necessarily mean that he is possessed or encouraged by a supernatural force, a fallen angel, or a red guy with horns, a tail, and carrying a pitchfork.

Whether or not Harry Belafonte means that when he says the Bush administration is "possessed of evil", I will leave for him to explain.

Much of that battle takes place in the form of prayer.

Americans will talk of praying as if it were the most normal, rational thing to do.

Gasp! How simplisme! How childlike!

During the last week a child who'd been missing for nine months has been found safe and well - the event was described routinely on the news media as a miracle.

What does the average BBC viewer think of this? Does he think, "Hold on, I said it was a 'miracle' that Deirdre's worthless brother wasn't killed in that smash-up, and I'm no bloody preacher." Or does he think, "Har! Stupid Yanks."

One broadcast had a caption reading "the power of prayer".

In fact the child had been abducted and her abductor was recognised and captured.
In rational old Britain the media circus following the finding of the child would have been focused on ways of preventing this happening again - on police errors in the investigation.

Here, metaphorically, sometimes literally, they just sink to their knees.

This is particularly rancid. What is our BBC viewer to think now? A kidnapped child is found and immediately the whole country bows its head, thanking God for her rescue. No one says a word about better police procedures, no one wonders how she could have avoided escaping for nine months, no one mentions the fact that the kidnapper himself seems to have a bit of a messiah complex. We all just rejoice that it was God's will that this child be found alive, and redouble our prayer chain efforts to bring back others. God will provide!

So while there are plenty of rational people giving rational advice about policy matters in the Bush White House there is also a channel, an input, from on high.

The Bush administration hums to the sound of prayer. Prayer meetings take place day and night.

Here these sentences are again. I think the humming's in your brain, friend.

Doubtless the president and his people have been praying earnestly that Saddam Hussein might fall under a bus.

Another stupidly offensive comment, disguised as a joke.

Having made the decision to fight the good fight - and have no doubt about it President Bush has made that decision - the nagging doubts, the rational fears, the worldly misgivings - all those things felt so strongly by post-religious Europeans - can be set aside.

Remember that, children, a Christian leader never, ever doubts. He never wonders whether his human frailties have led him into wrong in an effort to do right. He's never troubled by the unintended consequences of his plan. He never thinks of Dante's warning about good intentions. All he has to do is listen for the Voice of God within, and he's certain of being in the right. Deus lo volt! That's all he has to know.

There's a little more in the same vein. But I'm disappointed on what was cut. He mentioned at the top that he was an atheist, and how this was never a problem in Brussels, but then he lets that topic drop. He doesn't say how the infidel pair are treated in America. He neglects to mention the prayer meetings at "cocktail" parties (which now serve only Kool-Aid and Nilla Wafers). He omits the part about the threatening notes tossed through his window at night, saying, "Repent, Unbeliever!" He never tells us of how good Christian men menace his wife in the streets of fundamentalist Washington, beating her when her skirt rises above her knee.

Because that's what this is about, right? This article is another in a series designed to paint the US as just another loopy theocracy. I mean, Bush talks to God, Bin Laden talks to God, what's the difference between them? Only the size of their destructive power, yeah.

Andrew Sullivan comments briefly on this.

UPDATE: Merde in France has a similar tale of delicate horreur at Bush's religious affiliation:

Heard on sur Europe 1, top rated radio station, this afternoon: 'Does Bush belong to a sect?' (because his church is not 'recognized' by the Catholic Church). Someone should explain to the French that no Protestant Church is 'recognized' by the Catholic Church and that other religions exist outside of the Catholicism. Talk about fanatical bigotry.

As someone once pointed out to me, my splinter group is a denomination, yours is a sect, and his is a cult. In other words, I'm not sure whether "sect" carries the same whiff of nuttiness in French as it does in English.

Entre Nous, a blog by a former Belgian (somewhere in the Middle East, so Merde tells us), mentions this too, saying:

Belgians have the same problem --- that they think of religion as a binary state device. You're either 'catholique' (Roman Catholic) or 'laic' (secular humanist) --- most Belgians I discussed religion with knew that there were such things as Judaism and Islam, but were stupendously ignorant about Protestantism. The "cult" Dubya supposedly belongs to is none other than the United Methodist Church...Speak of "provincialism".

Bush's religion confirmed here. Oh, the humanity! How could Americans have elected a President that goes to the same church as my ancestors!

(Actually, my ancestors went to some obscure German Protestant church with probably about 50 members, which was eventually subsumed into a larger church, presumably with much the same outlook. This pattern repeated itself about three more times over the next century. Even after all that it didn't have one of your Big Denomination names; Mom told anyone who asked that she was Methodist.)

For some reason, the Other American I worked with in Sydney---quite a sophisticated and well-travelled and definitely non-simplisme fellow---asked me what church my family belonged to. I said something along the lines of, "Well, it wasn't anything weird. It was Methodist." He gave me his "oh how unsophisticated you are" laugh and told me that in Europe, Methodist was thought of as pretty weird.

Posted 10:32 PM by Angie Schultz

Beware the Ads of March!

I've been noticing something disturbing about the banner ads on Blogger sites. Before, the ads were maybe annoying, but at least they were (semi-)professionally done, and some even looked good. A lot of them were ads for advertising on Blogger.

A few weeks ago, I suddenly began seeing two banner ads on some sites. One would be the normal ad, and then right below it would be these cheap-looking new ads. The new ads were just plain white space with some text in it. Most of those banners were scrollable. There was no scroll bar, but if you put your mouse on the white space and scrolled up and down, you'd see a second ad. They didn't have a URL associated with them, but instead said "go to someurl" (with the actual URL, of course).

Now the original, colorful banners are gone, and as far as I can tell, all replaced with these cheesy ads.

The ads just aren't cheesy in appearance; their content sometimes seems a little dodgy too:

3/13/03: Europundits

Over 500 Police Items -- Apparel from FBI, ATF, LAPD, NYPD, Duty boots, tactical uniforms, more


Now, of course you know these ads rotate, so when you look, those same ads probably won't be there. Also, they don't pay to advertise on this site, so I'm not going to give the URLs.

3/14/03: Again on Europundits.

Antichrist Revealed --- Reveals the identity of Antichrist-666 from the classic Reformed view!


So I went to Blogger's main page and sampled a number of English-language blogs from their "recently updated" list. I don't read these particular blogs normally, they just happened to have ads that I considered particularly...interesting.

These are all today---3/15/03:
Schizo? Maybe. But at least we can accept me.

Stop Your Divorce -- Find out exactly what to say and do to stop your divorce or rejection.

Use your Mind for Success -- All success starts in the mind - what's in yours?

Has that second company asked to be advertised there?

Missing You!

Date Advice for Men --- Learn the "secret psychology" you need to attract any woman you want.


This one isn't particularly objectionable, just odd. They should have advertised on that last blog, considering its URL:
Me....no more, no less

Penguin Place -- All things penguin. Retail shopping and information


The following blog is particularly not endorsed.
SF Liberal

USA Official Green Cards -- Green Card, Visas, DV Lottery Citizenship, Immigration Forms

Bretz & Coven - Law Firm --- Full service immigration law firm Get help now from a professional


But what really caught my eye are these types of ads:
3/13/03
Bleeding Brain

Survive Terrorism --- Protect yourself now from smallpox, dirty bombs, and martial law.

Terrorism Planning Guide--- Assisting families and businesses to prepare for a crisis.


03/14/03
Entre Nous

Stop the War Machine --- Anti-war lapel pins being sold to raise money for the anti-war movement

"What Liberal Media?" --- By Eric Alterman Buy it at Amazon.com. Affiliate.


3/15/03
Thinking Meat
E. Nough's blog had not only the peace pins, but this:

War in Iraq: Is it Just? --- Is it ever appropriate for a nation to strike first? A new Bible study.

I was curious e. nough to click on the link, but I was no wiser as to what the Bible will say about first strikes. Or UN resolutions.

The first several times I saw these new ads, they were all for various anti-war type things. And they were all on pro-war blogs! (Of course, those are pretty much the only ones I read.) So I smelled a conspiracy, but it might just have been the petrochemicals, since the wind is from the south.

These are by no means the only kinds of ads. I saw one for subscriptions to Women's Day, and all day today Prof Bunyip has had Prozac ads up ("get prozar or generic direct from mexico and save"). Perhaps not coincidentally, the good Prof has not posted since Monday. Has he been taking his meds? (Bad professor! Bad!)

All punctuation and spelling are as in originals, by the way.

Blogger's ad-buying page says they're not taking new ads, because they're going to be revamping the way they do it. I hope this is the old vamp, and not the new. What would be the point of having your butt owned by HumonGooglous Corp if you had to sport the kinds of ads found in the back of Famous Knife Murders?

Posted 9:24 AM by Angie Schultz

Physics Phantasy Camp

On March 1, Erin O'Connor put up a post about a...thing...called a Tunnel of Oppression. From what I can gather, this is some sort of fun house/passion play/performance art/indoctrination center which apparently passes for education on some college campuses.

The idea, near as I can tell, is for student spectators to go through the "tunnel" and witness acts of "oppression", such as homelessness, domestic abuse, slavery, racism, and what have you. Erin has more here.

Big Arm Woman says:

What a lot of folks don't realize is that university housing programs, in a desperate bid to avoid privatization, have instituted "residence hall programming" designed to slap a veneer of scholarship over dormitory living...the bulk of their "programming" consists of diversity training...

I don't understand. When I was in college, the "residence halls" were prison-like blocks where you tried to sleep and avoided studying. There was a separate dining hall. Sex, drugs, and rock and roll were also somehow involved, but I had nothing to do with that. I can't remember them having any "programming", though it's possible they had seminars on dealing with stress and using the dorm's "files"---a collection of homework problems from previous students---as a study aid. (And that stress seminar will come in handy when your Physics TA finds out you and another girl have identical lab reports because you both copied verbatim from a report in the files.)

Now, in the comments to Erin's first post, David Foster comes up with a smashing idea:

Actually, I think this kind of thing has lots of potential. Why have classrooms, instructors, textbooks, etc? The college experience should be a set of rides and exhibits, more or less like Disney EPCOT but adjusted to be less intellectually challenging--we could have not only the "tunnel of oppression," but the "mountain of math," the "English Experience," and so on. Students could buy a ticket, ride through in comfort, have all of the proper beliefs instilled, and at the end collect a diploma. Professors would be liberated from the need to ever look at an undergraduate, much less talk to one.

This is terrific, and would be dead easy for physics.

--------------------------------
Hello students, and welcome to Physics 101. Just to recap, you will experience the various physics exhibits, and be given credit for each one you pass (alive).

First up is the Kinetic Energy Gallery. My lovely assistant, Frank, will demonstrate the concept of kinetic energy---E = 1/2mv²---with this shotgun. Take it away, Frank.

Well done, Frank! Excellent shooting! Now, students, you'll notice how much more the buckshot hurt than the birdshot. This is because the buckshot pellets have greater mass. Please do not try this at home, we are professionals here. Young lady, you should get that wound looked at after class.

Next we have Rotational Energy. If you'll all just file into the centrifuge, please. Yes, this is just like the "Round-Up", at the carnival, isn't it? Only faster. Push the button, Frank. Now you'll not---I SAID, YOU'LL NOTICE THAT THE ACCELERATION YOU FEEL IS v²/r, or rw². YOU ARE BEING ACCELERATED TOWARD THE WALLS OF THE CHAMBER; IF THE WALLS WEREN'T THERE YOU'D BE FLUNG OUT INTO SPACE! OK, Frank, remove the walls.

Ahhh...what fun! That was always my favorite ride. Notice that you were flung in a direction tangent to the centrifuge, and did not continue with the rotation after the walls were removed.

Let's go on to the next exhibit. What's that? Still bleeding from KE, eh? Well, try not to get---TRY NOT TO GET ANY BLOOD ON THE EXHIBITS. THAT RINGING IN YOUR EARS SHOULD GO AWAY IN A FEW HOURS.

[Later]

Well, well, we're nearly finished with Thermal Physics. We've done convection and radiation---more salve, anyone?---and now we'll do the final mode of heat transfer: conduction.

Well, young lady, since your shot wounds have stopped bleeding, would you like to hand me that bowl over there? The white one?

Oh, do stop being such a whiner. No, it won't hurt you. I swear, how do you expect to become a physicist if you don't experiment once in a while? Oh, all right, Frank, you pick it up. There. See, it doesn't hurt Frank. Give it to her, Frank.

Happy? The bowl is warm because it's been sitting on a heat source. Now, pick up the gray bowl next to it. We'll see that the gray bowl is much warmer because it has a higher thermal conductivity, whi---oh, now you've dropped the bowl. Yes, you big baby, it was hot. This is thermal physics, where we learn how things get hot. Let me see. Oh, those burns can't be more than second degree. Good grief, quit your crying and have some more salve.

Well, congratulations. Those of you who remain have passed the first half of the course, which deals with Classical Mechanics and Thermal Physics. The next half of the course deals with Electricity and Magnetism. Our first lesson will be in resistance---specifically, the resistance of the human skin. Young lady, I'm afraid you have not exactly covered yourself with glory---although you have with blood---so far. Perhaps you would care to redeem yourself by attaching these electrodes to your---wait, where are you going? Come back here, you coward!

Well, it seems as if Our Little Miss was not made of the stuff it takes to be a physicist, eh, gentlemen? Gentlemen? Where has every---hey! HEY! YOU DON'T GET A REFUND AT THIS STAGE, YOU KNOW!

Cravens. Well, Frank, it looks as if we're done for today. I'm sorry we didn't get to Atomic Physics. I know how much you enjoy the accelerator. Oh, all right, we'll go sit in the beam for a few minutes, and after that we can go watch The Amazing Colossal Man, how will that be?

--------------------------------

There, wasn't that fun? Maybe I'll include it in my next job application.

My Heroes.

This is a GSU site on basic physics, which is pretty useful.

Posted 9:51 AM by Angie Schultz

Do Cheetos Never Prosper?

Dave Barry, being a Real Journalist, has contacts throughout the shadowy world of snack foods, so he got an email from Bryce Wilson, who bought the giant Cheeto. When I blogged about this last week, I said that he'd bought it for "no adequately-explained reason". I stand by that statement.

I predict that in the future, "he bought the giant Cheeto" will become shorthand
for "he spent a great deal of money on a dubious scheme to bring fame and/or fortune".

Here's my favorite part:

Because, by displaying the Cheeto in a temple, I will be taking a large portion of food out of circulation, I've decided to put some back in. I'm now raising money for the local food pantry, all in the name of the Cheeto.

In the Name of the Cheeto, the Pop-Tart, and the Holy Ding Dong, let us pray...

Via Ken Layne.

Posted 6:51 PM by Angie Schultz

The Prime Mover

I have this theory. It's in its early stages, so I'm not sure what to call it. Reading many press reports of current events, one gets the idea that the US is the Prime Mover.[*] That is, only the US can actually act; all other entities can only react to US actions. Often the reports, while critical of US actions, fail to note that others' reactions are not the only ones available. Actors are subject to criticism; those who can only react get a pass. Let's look at a specimen from the BBC:

Bush's struggle over N Korean threat
By Geraldine Carroll in Washington DC

The background here is the the US has been shipping fuel oil to North Korea, which burns it to generate electricity. That way, see, the North Koreans won't have to try to restart their nuclear reactor, which might accidentally produce plutonium, along with the electricity.

But last fall North Korea admitted (and, if I recall, then denied, then sort of hemmed and hawed) that it had a secret nuclear weapons program. So the US stopped the oil shipments. (It sounds as if they didn't need the plutonium from their reactors to make their nukes, if indeed they actually have nukes, rather than just a nuke program.)

Since then North Korea's been making a bunch of threats, vows, and demands. The Dear Leader has called the Cowboy-in-Chief out, now what's Bush going to do?

Poised to unleash war on Iraq, the Bush administration is under siege at home and abroad over its failure to ease the growing North Korean nuclear crisis.

This sets the tone for the article. Note the implication that the Bush administration is somehow responsible for the crisis, and therefore must be the one to ease it. By this I don't only mean the American administration as opposed to Japan, say, but also as opposed to North Korea.

Mr Bush is also being accused of standing by as Pyongyang prepares to crank up a reprocessing plant at Yongbyon which could churn out up to six nuclear bombs by midsummer, according to CIA estimates.

Ahh...our old friend, the passive voice: Bush "is accused", and furthermore "under siege", and "critics say"... Besides the ambiguous Carl Levin, below, only one other critic (former SecDef William Perry) is actually quoted, in a sentence I've snipped.

While it might be argued that this article is about Bush, and therefore it's not surprising that the (in-)actions of China, Russia, Japan, or South Korea are kept in the background, I'm left to wonder why this is about Bush, and not about, say, the failure of China to rein in its client, or whether the South Korean "sunshine policy" has softened or hardened North Korea's stance.

I'll also point out that Bush does not have many choices other than "standing by". Bush might talk to the North Koreans, but if they are determined to go ahead with their nuclear effort, then there's not a lot he can do.

Oh, sure, he could try a military solution, but somehow I don't think that would meet with the BBC's approval.

But US efforts to convene a regional forum on the crisis, including China and Russia, have so far appeared to make no progress.

Mr Bush himself did little to still criticism in a prime time news conference on Thursday night, simply repeating that North Korea was not a US problem alone.

"This is a regional issue. We've got a stake as to whether North Korea has a nuclear weapon. China clearly has a stake as to whether or not North Korea has a nuclear weapon," he said.

US officials see China and Russia as key to pressuring Pyongyang. But Beijing and Moscow want direct US-North Korean talks and have balked at a regional strategy.

Now here we see at least a slight hint that other countries can act, too; or in this case not act: Russia and China have balked.

But critics of the administration point out that Mr Bush's determination to use diplomacy to stop North Korea acquiring weapons of mass destruction sits at odds with the policy against Iraq.

There are also fears that allowing North Korea to go nuclear could ignite a domino effect.

Democrat Senator Carl Levin said Mr Bush could "send a horrendous message not just in Asia, but also to Iran and to other countries that are contemplating nuclear programmes."

Here the author trots out a critic for our inspection, but it's a rather vague criticism. Levin could as easily be criticizing the President for not being more bellicose, rather than more diplomatic. (Here is an article with a slightly longer quote, which doesn't really clear it up. We also see that Levin is always worried about sending horrendous messages to various groups.)

Analysts are particularly worried that Japan may feel compelled to match North Korea's nuclear aspirations, causing a suspicious China to look to augment its own modest atomic arsenal. That could prompt new atomic power grabs in chronically unstable South Asia.

This was the paragraph that spurred my interest. Japan feels compelled...causing China...prompting new power grabs... It's as inevitable as an avalanche, and all because of Bush! Bush does nothing, and this destabilizes an entire region, possibly, in the end, triggering a nuclear war! Tremble before the terrible inertia of Bush!

Mr Bush has given indications that the issue is personal, telling US journalist Bob Woodward in a recent book that he "loathes" Kim Jong-il.

"Cause he tried to kill my daddy. Wait, or was it that other fella. Drat, I always get these tyrants mixed up. Let me call Condi, she'll know..." It's always "personal" with Bush in the eyes of the European press, isn't it? How simplistic, loathing the Dear Leader and his merry band of butchers. I'll bet Bush's "faith" has something to do with that. A sophisticated man would simply "deplore" him (you have to wave your hand languidly when you say "deplore", for maximum sophistication).

The US president's outspokenness has damaged US relations with South Korea, which under former President Kim Dae-jung pioneered a "sunshine policy" of engaging the North.

Of course, the South Koreans have no choice but to consider the relationship "damaged".

Either the US president will have to do a deal with what he sees as the devil and decide to approve talks with North Korea - or see the isolated Communist state acquire a doomsday arsenal of nuclear weapons.

Well, this is fair enough, although they do neglect to mention any military option.

Basically, there's no way for George to win here. The US has been giving the North Koreans freshly-scrubbed carrots for not developing nuclear weapons. Now they want the weapons, but they want the carrots, too. So the US withdraws the carrot, and North Korea whines and screams and threatens to hold its breath until Japan turns blue.

At this point Bush's options seem to be: 1) do nothing, and let NK develop nukes; 2) give up stuff, and let NK develop nukes; 3) prevent NK from developing nukes by, um, nuking them. Or something.

None of these is a very good option. Option 3 is pretty extreme (technically, we wouldn't have to nuke them, we'd just have to do an Israelis-at-Osirak, and hope they don't actually have nukes yet), which wouldn't be real popular either.

For Bush to deal on Kim's terms would not be doing "a deal with the devil", but furnishing Hell to gain entry to Heaven. Now, since none of Bush's options are any good, he should go with that one. He'll give up stuff, and it won't slow the North Koreans down one damn bit, but he'll look like a Good Man Who Tried. This is a ticket to one free Peace Prize and a lifetime's supply of tedious impotent moralizing.

The trick, when you are the Prime Mover, is not to move.

[*] For those interested: Yes, I did try to find a cite which a) wasn't from a refutation page, and b) did not have godawful orange background, and also c) wasn't from a scary New Age website, but didn't have much luck.

Posted 12:48 PM by Angie Schultz

A Pleiad for Peace

I really don't need to call your attention to this bit of drivel in the Guardian, as Emily or Andrea already have, but I just couldn't resist the author's name: Merope Mills.

Merope Mills, Merope Mills, what a beautiful, beautiful name.
Sounds like a housing development,
Or a shopping center,
Just the same.

I don't know how Ms. Mills pronounces her first name, but another bearer of it (the big one nearest the bottom of the picture, the dusty one) pronounces it MAIR-o-pee. I wonder if Ms. Mills has sisters Alcyone, Asterope, Celaeno, Elektra, Maia, and Taygete. (Here is probably more than you want to know about Merope and her sisters.)

Possibly Ms. Mills pronounces it to rhyme with Mope, her tone throughout this article.

Her prose reminds me forcefully of one half of this Internet Golden Oldie. See if you can guess which one.

Amid the comparisons of the current conflict with Iraq to the 1956 Suez crisis and Chamberlain's 1939 appeasement, two more recent dates came to my mind - not for their political parallels, but for their poignancy. In 1989, I was 12 years old: too young to fully understand the significance of that date, but old enough to commit to memory the faces of East Berliners as the iron curtain came down.

"That was my first summer of love, when "Spotty" Snape and I began fumbling toward adulthood, out back of the gazebo during the village fete..."

There is a certain solace in thinking about them just now. Given the choice, I find it much more comforting to dwell on the optimistic end of a turbulent period of history, as opposed to the terrifying beginning of a new one.

Immediately after September 11, there were predictions that our lives would never be the same again. Then came the backtracking - perhaps it was just America that had changed. It had come into the world, people said, and been forced to think more globally and sensitively (a premonition that is sadly wide of the mark).

But 18 months on, we feel the consequences more than ever. Fear and instability are the norm and the words "terrorism" and "war" are never out of the papers. As someone in their 20s, who grew up during peacetime, they are arresting differences.

"Why, oh why can't the nations of the world work together to outlaw war and terrorism and support love for all?"

At universities, students are far more numerous in their opposition to a planned attack on Iraq than they ever were against tuition and top-up fees. Radicalism is no longer a luxury for the young.

"Oh, those were the alcyone...er, halcyon...days. We demonstrated for the addition of kimchee to the campus cafeteria, for the establishment of a Department of Autogratification Studies, and against having to cough up a sixpence for our own educations..."

Without cold war missile crises to haunt our childhood memories, we have been fortunate to live without the fear of impending doom.

But it was Kenneth Clarke who captured the fear of how this war will shape our future: "The next time a large bomb explodes in a western city, or an Arab or Muslim regime topples and is replaced by extremists, the government must consider the extent to which the policy contributed to it."

So here we are, us twentysomethings, facing an asymmetrical war that targets people we have nothing against; facing threats from cultures we don't really understand; and dangers we can't protect ourselves from.

How long will it be before we can wear intoxicated smiles of permanent peace? Will it be 10, 20 years from now? Perhaps we'll be parents of children who have never known what it's like not to live in fear. Invading Iraq might solve one problem, but it will create myriad others. Problems we will be witnessing for the best part of our lives.

ATTENTION: MAGGOT! DID YOUR MAMA FORGET TO PACK YOU A FRESH SET OF UNDIES BEFORE SHE SENT YOU OUT INTO THE BIG COLD WORLD? WELL, WE'RE JUST GOING TO HAVE TO CALL YOU "STINKY", THEN, AREN'T WE?

Look, Mopey, I grew up in the Sixties and Seventies, right smack dab in the middle of the Impending Doom years. I am the child who never knew what it was like not to live in fear, if you could use that phrase to describe someone who spent the Cold War deep in peaceful and prosperous Western territory, someone whose main worry during that awful time was thinking up good names for her large herd of plastic horses.

Some people used this excuse to become all wild and uncontrolled. You see that in old books and TV shows---kids moaning about how they lived under the Shadow of the Bomb, and when the world's gonna end any moment, why shouldn't they take whatever shallow satisfaction they kind find in the moment? Like, heavy, man.

Others did what some of your contemporaries are doing now---using current events as cover for their youthful propensities to riot and scream. Just like you, they were gonna make the world safe for peace and justice and love and little yellow duckies. And to their absolute horror, they succeeded, at least in the larger things, and with no more world to save, had to go and get real jobs.

Some of them, however, never grew up. They're the ones leading your little pro-tyranny protests right now. If you're unlucky, you'll be one of those, and in thirty years you'll be in Iraq agitating on behalf of a Sunni who suffered great mental anguish when a Jewish shopkeeper dared to wish him happiness on a Shia holiday.

And, of course, the sixties were nothing compared to the forties. SO GROW A DAMNED SPINE.

In an only tangentially-related development, the Guardian continues to uphold its reputation as the most pathetic rag in the Anglosphere with this article on blogging. This is the most germaine point:

On the other hand, it's getting so easy to update a weblog that some users seem to type in their thoughts willy-nilly, posting unimaginable banalities...Here's a crazy idea: if you're going to write a weblog, why don't you do what most of this weekend's Bloggie award nominees appear to be doing, and try to expand the field of human knowledge in some particular area?

'Cause that's my day job. In my off hours I mock pouting adolescents writing in the Guardian.

Via A Small Victory.

Posted 8:09 AM by Angie Schultz

What Butler Saw

David from Silent Running has posted this fascinating interview New Zealand National Radio had with Richard Butler, former chief UN weapons inspector.

Unfortunately I couldn't find a link to this. David says Butler made interesting remarks about Scott Ritter, but then didn't post them, the tease.

Let's have a few tidbits:

Butler:...I think France has been posturing in a way that is almost outrageous. Let's face it, you know, France knows Iraq has weapons of mass destruction. One of the reasons for that apart from the fact that they've got a very good intelligence service is that they know it because they've got the receipts, in other words because they sold them some of those weapons in the past.

There's much more in this vein. Butler says that the French are not going to hold out, that if everyone else is on board they won't be left at the station. But he says it's hard to know what motivates them. He seems to think that they in particular will not be separated from the Russians, which I find just a bit peculiar.

(And by "peculiar", I mean "surprisingly unsurprising".)

Here's another fun bit:

Presenter: the French presumably are concerned that out of all of this America will end up controlling the oil, aren't they?

Butler: Well no, the French are concerned with the shape of the post cold war world. They don't like a uni-polar world, they don't like the fact that it's becoming an anglophonic world. They've got lots of such concerns. Oil is a part of it.

I know nothing about the presenter here (David says her name is Linda Clark), but one can almost hear her wanting to reply, "It's not aaaaallll about the ooooiiiillll? But it's aaaaallll about the ooooiiiillll, everyone knows that. How can you say it's not about the ooooiiiillll?"

InstaUPDATE: My relentless hectoring has prompted David to post more of the transcript of this interview, including the bits about Scott Ritter. Watch Butler get snippy with his interviewer!

Butler doesn't believe that war is the solution to the problem of Iraq's weapons. I disagree with him, but I'd like to hear what he would suggest. But---heavens!---how refreshing it is to hear someone admit that the whole do-they-don't-they do-si-do is a bunch of bull!

Posted 3:39 PM by Angie Schultz

Ridley's Believe It or Not

Fred Pruitt at Rantburg brings us this blast from the past, the Independent's chat with "journalist" Yvonne Ridley, at the end of 2001. Ridley, you may remember, was working for the Sunday Express, disguised in a burqa (er, Ridley, not the Express), when she was captured by the Taliban. Being a chick with high PR potential, she was treated with minimum brutality.

You may also remember that she wrote---or, rather, emitted---a book on the experience. Now, as Fred says, those of you who have not read this, go do so immediately. Those of you who have will not be hurt by reading it again. Here are a few teasers.

The Independent's headline for this reads:

Friday. Fell off donkey. Captured by Taliban. V. scary

One chapter, "Carrying On up the Khyber", tells of how she almost shot dead several soldiers when her scarf got caught in the semiautomatic she was holding while posing in a very "Boadicea-like manner" for a photograph. Then there's the hangover she suffered after a particularly heavy night drinking, and the yell of "Flaming Nora" (while posing as a deaf mute) she emitted when her donkey bolted during her fateful attempt to get back into Pakistan. As she reached for its reins, her camera swung into view, and she was arrested.

If there isn't a drink called a "Flaming Nora", there ought to be. And if there isn't a...something---a mountain range, a nebula, a wrestling hold---called "Ridley's Ass", I'll discover one.

But what puts the book into a league of its own is Ridley's claim that Western intelligence agencies tried to get her killed while she was imprisoned to bolster public support for the air strikes on Afghanistan...."[F]rankly, I've seen this sort of thing happen to other people, and the first thing that's done to them is they are marginalised and made out to be total crackpots."

No!

Who does she think is out to get her? "The contacts I've got say it's got the clumsy hands of the Americans all over it," she says darkly. "But then those contacts would say that. Other people think it's Mossad. I've got no idea.

Oh, hey. No need to tell us that.

The worst moment was when her guard went to find a woman to search her before locking her up, and she thought she was going to be stoned to death.

As she had been on so many occasions...

When not being questioned, she was on a permanent hunger strike, doing yoga, reading Ken Follett and being bloody minded to the guards (which included hanging her knickers out to dry in full view). She believes she was released because the press coverage was embarrassing the Taliban regime.

I suspect the Taliban figured there could be no better poster child for their views on women.

Be sure and read about her daughter, Daisy, and how she was conceived, and who her father was. Poor little thing. Oops, there's that pity coming on again. Must go eat some raw meat.

Ridley is now (supposedly) in the process of converting to Islam.

I must seek out Ridley's book. It came out at the end of 2001, so surely some copies have percolated to used bookstores by now.

But the reason Fred brings her to our attention at this time is because she's at some sort of conference, displaying shocking ignorance of, or indifference to, recent history. Unfortunately, the link Fred gives (in the title of his post) doesn't seem to go to anything useful. If there's an article there, it's not showing up in my browser, nor can I see it in the page source.

Whatever it was, Fred repeats some of it, but you've heard it all: Guantanamo is worse than a Taliban prison; sanctions are killing millions of Iraqi babies; Afghanistan is no better off; take it from one who knows the score/Osama bin Laden is winning the war.

Another society would make an epic poem of September 11 and its aftermath (which we are still in today). This being America, we will of course make movies out of it. Will it be a linear series of films? Or will it be like WWII movies, which usually focus on individual (if sometimes sweeping) events.

There will of course be dramas. September 11 itself must be one, as well as the Taliban war. Gulf War II will almost certainly be a drama as well.

But there will also be comedies. I wonder if WWII was as rich in comedy as the events of the past 18 months. I can't remember too many WWII comedies, and none that were based on real events.

But our era is blessed. Besides the saga of Yvonne Ridley we have:

John Simpson's liberation of Kabul (see also here)
Naked protesters
Non-naked naked protesters
Celebrity Goofballs Against the War
The ongoing human shield circus.
Comical Arab League Insult Exchange

If jkrank plays his cards right, maybe he can direct a few.

Posted 8:45 PM by Angie Schultz

Psycho Segway-Surfer Sideswipes Surprised Scientist

'PEACE PROTESTER' PLACES PEDESTRIANS IN PERIL

We bring you this breaking news from Houston: a local man has just had a chilling encounter with the new-fangled death machine known as the Segway.

..............................................

So, sir, could I have your name, please?

Niles.

Niles...uh...?

Just Niles.

Very well, Niles. Please tell us where you were when the Segway came bearing down on you.

Well, I was walking on Main St near Sunset, in the Museum District.

When was this?

I'd say it was about 5:45pm.

Where had you been?

I had been attending an exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts, and I was on my way back to work.

Which exhibit was that?

It was a travelling exhibit of paintings, from the State Pushkin Museum in Moscow.

Moscow! Are you some kind of Commie?

Uh...no...

And where do you work, sir?

Uh, near there.

Near Moscow?

No! Near the museum.

And that exhibit, didn't that have a lot of "French Masterworks" in it?

Yes.

Are you sure you're not some kind of Commie Weasel?

No!

No you're not sure?

No, I'm not a weasel! I'm British!

Oh, well, in that case...can you describe the Segway's rider?

It was a man.

Age, race...?

Fortyish, white, dressed like a Rice engineering professor. He was wearing a bicycle helmet, so I couldn't see him that well.

Wearing a disguise! Now, how fast was he going?

Well, quite fast really. Faster than you could walk.

Hmmm, and was he approaching you, or did he sneak up from behind?

Coming towards me.

And did he have any sort of lights on this Segway of his?

No.

Hmmm, and how about a horn, did he have a horn?

Well, he didn't hoot it if he did.

Now, what was your reaction as this behemoth bore inexorably down upon you.

I stepped out of the way.

Stepped out of the way. Into the street, perhaps?

No, I stepped on the other side, into the mud.

Forced into the mud. Now, do you have any idea where he might have been going in such an all-fired hurry, knocking innocent citizens into the muck?

Well, of course he could've been going anywhere. But I had just passed a group of peace protesters at the Mecom Fountain...

I see, peace protesters. How many would you say there were?

Oh, well into the teens.

Teens? You mean, over ten thousand?

No, over ten. Under 20.

Under 20 peace protesters.

Yes.

Now, sir, at any time, did you feel the slightest bit threatened by this maniac?

No, but you can make stuff up.

..............................................

Hot damn! My first journalistic scoop! I bet this is just how Welch and Layne do it.

Posted 7:49 PM by Angie Schultz

Simple City

I almost forgot about this, which dovetails nicely with the post below. If you think that I was a bit too harsh in taking Lilli as representative of Europeans, perhaps you would take a squint at this transcript of Fox's John Gibson interviewing an American expatriate in France, freelance journalist John Von Sothen.

Von Sothen says much the same thing Lilli does: that Europeans believe we are being manipulated by the press.


Von Sothen: I think basically the French, from what I've heard, they're primarily against Bush and not too happy with the way the media or the way you guys are painting the picture...They still feel empathy towards the Americans [because of 9/11], but I think they feel the Americans are being manipulated in this whole thing.

GIBSON: Well, who would be manipulating the Americans?

VON SOTHEN: I think it starts with the administration. And then the second people that usually get it and what I've heard is the media. And that, the Americans aren't getting the whole story and that a lot of the media is just...

GIBSON: What is the whole story they're not getting?

VON SOTHEN: Well, I think they're getting a story, but it's not complex. You know, they're hearing from Bush just a lot of sound bites, a lot of stuff like "game over", and "you're with us or without us or against us", you know, simplifying the situation...

And I think there's a fear of like an oversimplicity there. Where as here, they read about five papers a day and they've really kind of studied the situation back and forth.

VON SOTHEN: What I get here is the Americans aren't getting it from you guys why they see it this way. You know?

GIBSON: Well, what is the reason?...

VON SOTHEN: It's not like they believe that France is right and America is wrong. What they tell me is that the situation is a lot more complex, and you can't just go head off into war without realizing all the different angles and possible consequences.


There's a little more here. Gibson brings up the French oil contracts, and Von Sothen gallicly shrugs it off. But his basic, unsupportable point is that Americans are being manipulated by the media and the government.

In my experience, many Europeans take it for granted that Americans are stupid, or at the very least ignorant. This may well lead them to dismiss American support for the war as the product of manipulation, no matter our reasons.

It's always amazed me how Europeans can think the American people are stupid, given the history of the past century. "Oh, yeah, their society drives the world's economy, and they've spawned a ton of scientific advances, and the world's children flock to their universities, but we're much smarter..."

Posted 2:33 PM by Angie Schultz

The Lillis of the Field

A good example of what I mean by childish European anti-American views are the comments by "Lilli" in this post on A Small Victory.

It's not the point that you've waited for 12 years to take the weapons away, the USA gave Saddam years before, (or what do you think where he got the anthrax and all the other stuff from?).

The point is that it's not up to the US to decide. You can't run around and hit people you don't like (For however good reason you might have), just because you're the strongest guy on the schoolyard. If you do you are not the slightest way better than any other second-hand-rambo you prevent to want to fight.

Personally, I wish, the troops would have finished their work 12 years ago and I see no reason why the whole world should suffer now for a wrong decision from 12 years before. Okay - the USA feels threatened. But why do they so? Because they are blamed for everything bad on the world, started by Bill Gates and ended with the weather and the ocone-problem. They have of course their share on it, as any other industrial country has, but there are surely not the only reason for all evil on earth.

As isn't Islam! Islamic extremists are totally dangerous - no doubt. But so are christian extremists, too, all you have to think about is the crusades. If the US wants to go after Saddam for "personal" reasons, they should call them so. They will do it anyway, whatever the UN says and whatever other countries say, but they should be honest about all the reasons, which is what I miss.

From here I see the people in the US being manipulated on a very high level, and for me, when someone tries to manipulate me into something, I get at least a bit careful if there might be other reasons than I am told How about you?

And also:

...

1) The Bill Gates and weather was ironic. Sorry it didn't come over, I'll try harder next time.

2) I assume we are being manipulated, too. No question, but so are the US citizens. And I don't buy that all the US folks are following it - there are enough who protest. There seem to be many...Here [in wherever she is] is hardly somene to find who would support Bush, even my parents who are really conservative (I always thought they inventet the word), don't like what he's doing.

3) Kamil jr.: [another commenter] You ask who is manipulating you? Ah - that's an easy one - the same people who are telling you, that Saddam himself or at least someone he personally instructed(attention - irony alert) was flying the planes. It was your government who didn't stop setting a connection betweeen 9-11 and Saddam. Here in our papers this is called one of the greatest manipulations ever happened.

4) mj [another commenter] wants to be safe - I guess you'd have to nuke the rest of the world before you could feel safe (aren't the most US citizens killed by other US citizens? So youmight nuke anyone else, too). And no - I don't count the pope into my "extremist christian" league.

I've inserted paragraphs in her comments, which aren't in the originals. She says in the second comment that she was joking about "Bill Gates and the weather" in the first comment, which I guess is clear in retrospect. But her hysterical assertions and sloppy reasoning obscure that.

There are many things to argue with here, but in particular I take issue with this part, from the second comment:

It was your government who didn't stop setting a connection betweeen 9-11 and Saddam. Here in our papers this is called one of the greatest manipulations ever happened.

I asked, in the comments, if anyone had heard that. I remember that Czech intelligence had been following an Iraqi diplomat, and reported after 9/11 that he had met with Mohammed Atta. The CIA wasn't buying it, and later the Czechs said they had been mistaken (although it's my recollection that some factions of the Czech government maintain it was true).

[Here is a FAQ on the subject, by Richard M. Smith, who as far as I know is just some random guy. I wouldn't ordinarily cite such a thing, but it mostly jibes with my recollections (I didn't hear some of the wilder rumors), it seems pretty dispassionate, and he has linked cites (although by this time link rot has claimed three of them).]

Ryan Waxx replied, again in Michele's comments:

The basis of the "americans being manipulated" charge is two-fold:

First, the Czech meeting is not only portrayed as an outright lie, its portrayed as an AMERCIAN one.

Second, there was a poll that claimed to have 'proven' that pro-war people were ignorant. One of the questions asked the responsandants if they believed one or more of the 9/11 hijackers was Iraqi. More pro-war people believed this than anti-war people did.

Of course, the idea that people believe what they want to, never occured to the people using this poll (or more likely, it did and they took advantage).

Lillie said "It was your government who didn't stop setting a connection betweeen 9-11 and Saddam." But it is very clear that the government did stop setting such a connection, last spring. I don't debate these things with people in real life, so I don't really know what people think. I do know that I have not seen that meeting mentioned in a government news conference for a very long time; I don't remember hearing Bush allude to it all. I've not seen it mentioned in pro-war editorials and comments for a long time.

Even at the time, I didn't give much credence to it. There was always the chance for error, and there may have been other explanations. But I don't know what other people, who are not newspaper or TV or blog pundits, think about it. Since I barely remember it, didn't think it very significant, and have heard little about it for almost a year, I assume other people discount it too; but that might not be true.

The poll Ryan mentions is here, by the way. There are no links to individual polls; this is the fifth from the top, "Knight Ridder poll conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates. Jan. 3-6, 2003".

I happened to stumble onto the web page of an acquaintance, and saw this poll used to support this very view: that government propaganda had convinced Americans that Saddam was involved with 9/11. He was very heated about it. I was quite disappointed, because it ruined my respect for this person's reasoning processes. (So disappointed that real-world consequences ensued.) And according to Lilli, the European press believes this too.

Lilli has her own blog. In this post she giggles that she just couldn't resist trying to get us stupid Yankees to think:

And again I just couldn't resist to comment this stuff. I know, I should know better than to expect anything but unreflected flame, but somehow I still hope to help at least the one or the other start thinking. Of course, I'm not in possession of the ultimate truth about Saddam and Iraq, but I know when someone tries to sell me foul eggs for good ones. And the US try to sell these foul eggs at the moment. I don't like too much conspiration stuff, but we can't run from the now dead communist-bashing to Islam-bashing, just because little Georgie needs an enemy. This is really way too silly!

...little Georgie needs an enemy...

Now that's an informed and thoughtful viewpoint on the war.

I wanted to comment on this, but her comments section only allows 400 characters per comment. (By comparison, her short post there was 596 characters.) So it's hardly worth the effort.

I wanted to know what "manipulated" meant. Ryan answered in his comment on Michele's site, but here Lilli has her own answer:

And there are really people who ask what I mean with manipulation? Well, this is part of what I call so. Why would a station have someone speak the translation with an arab-accent? Because of Pawlow. I'd bet people worldwide (not only in the US) have become so much aware of dangers when they hear someone speak with an arab accent, this alone is enough to make anyone feeling uncomfortable.

Again, I include myself here. At our big Roses-Monday Parade (over 1.000.000 people come to cologne and have Carnival - Mardi Gras seemsto be similar) I was really aware the two dark skinned tourists next to me who were speaking with something I thought sounding like Arab or so. (By my luck they were Danes or Portugese, and it was me, being silly). But well, I saw them and what was my association? Terrorists, of course. And I'd bet most of the americans would have the same one.

So maybe this accent of Saddam was just to prevent that people find him nice and fun or so. But who would at all? By all pro or anti war stuff, I don't think there are many countries in the world who would really grieve if he would disappear from the surface today for ever. So what was this for?

[Again, paragraphs inserted for readability.]

The article she links states than an actor faked an Arab accent for Saddam's voice in the translation of his interview with Dan Rather. While this is kind of strange, I don't really understand why she thinks this is "manipulative". Oh, that's wrong, I do see---she says it right there. Americans are going to hear an Arab accent and think EVIL! EVIL! EVIL!

Sorry. I've heard so many accents from native Arab speakers that I would have a hard time telling you that it was an "Arab" accent (there isn't just one, you know).

If I were to give it much thought, I'd say that CBS assumed that their audience was so dim they wouldn't be able to distinguish Rather's questions from Saddam's answers unless they gave Saddam an accent. Either that, or they just have a knee-jerk foreigner=accent attitude, as in old var movies vere ze Chermans alvays haf Cherman accents even zo zere are only Chermans in ze pikcha.

(Also, if they'd used an actual Arab translator's voice, he might well have had an Arab accent. Would that have been manipulative too? My X-Files theory gains in credibility.)

Lilli believes that Americans are being manipulated into war, so she automatically assumes that using a fake accent is a means toward that end. This, you'll recall, would have to mean that CBS is actually pro-war, and that Rather's softball questions were meant to make Saddam look bad.

Lilli's comments about her reaction to the tourists at the Carnival would seem to indicate that she's a giddy thing who can't see a dark-skinned person without thinking, "Terrorist!", if only for a minute---and she thinks that Americans must be just like that too.

Perhaps it's unfair to use Lilli as an example of European opinion. She claims not to speak for all Europeans, which is good. But I'm afraid her dizzy, thoughtless tone echoes what we've been hearing from the "European street" lately. Ils ne sont pas sérieux. (For the voice of the "European elite", see the Regis Debray article.)

UPDATE: Charles Rangel [D-NY] was on O'Reilly a bit ago. He said that Bush had said Saddam had something to do with 9/11. O'Reilly objected, and Rangel "clarified" that Bush said that his job was to protect the American people, and that he wasn't going to let something like 9/11 happen again. Which, if you have all the brains of toast, is clearly saying that Saddam was behind 9/11. When they put the transcript up, I'll link to it.

Posted 12:37 PM by Angie Schultz

Dangerously Cheesy Tourist Attractions

Awriiiiight: A giant Cheeto has been discovered by one of our brave but slightly crazed servicemen. The size of a small lemon, it was found in a naturally-occurring vein of Cheetos, which spontaneously form in plastic bags in supermarkets and other retail outlets.

After trying to sell it on Ebay (of course), he has donated it to a small town in Iowa, for no adequately-explained reason. They will put it to good use:

They plan to shellac it, lay it on plush velvet and put it under Plexiglas.

"This giant Chee-to could be a boon to our local economy," said Tom Straub, owner of Algona's Sister Sarah's Bar.

I predict that within fifty years Algona, Iowa, will boast a giant---and I mean giant---fiberglass Cheeto.

I love Cheetos---not those nasty fried ones, but the baked kind. When I got back from Australia there was a long list of foods I was eager to taste again, and Cheetos were near the top of the list.

If I had encountered the giant Cheeto, I probably would've exclaimed over it, maybe photographed it, and then eaten it, because---hey, what else are you going to do with a Cheeto? It's not like you could sell it on Ebay or anything. Cheez.

Via The Corner.

Posted 9:56 PM by Angie Schultz

BLASPHEMER!

(I wish I had a cool medieval font for that.)

Bigwig is committing MURDER!

Tonight I told friends of 25 years goodbye. Tonight I killed Fafrhd and the Grey Mouser, and Conan, and Logan and Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever. They lie among piles of kin, hundreds of characters from the last 5 decades of fantasy and science fiction.

Thank you, my friends. Thank you for all the years.

I have --- literally --- thousands of books, not all of them science fiction by any means. I lived for five years in the Bay Area, where there are library book sales every month. Palo Alto has one every month, and many of the other municipal libraries have two a year---Sunnyvale and Mountain View and Menlo Park and Los Altos. I never got up to the big San Francisco sale. Some of them, like Sunnyvale, had a few books always on sale up front; Menlo Park had its own little bookstore in the library, and I think Los Gatos had a separate bookstore away from the library.

That used to be the highlight of my month, to drive up to Palo Alto and battle the book dealers for goodies. Ah, the boring tales I could tell, about the ones I caught, and the ones that got away!

Anyway, I acquired about a thousand books like that. Many of them aren't very good; many are just non-fiction books I found interesting. It goes without saying that I haven't read all of them.

Anyhow, Bigwig is now tossing out his old books. I wouldn't have a thing to say to Robert Asprin books (though the Starblaze editions had pretty covers), nor Gardener (have a couple of his Zork novels---much duller than the game). But Poul and Laumer and Bova and Ellison? And Clarke and Asimov? No way, man.

When I read that, it felt as if I'd been punched in the gut. I've boxed those books, and labelled and taped them and hauled them from Missouri to Texas to California and back to Texas and on to Sydney and back again. They're damned heavy, and get heavier by the year. I want them to light somewhere, permanently.

Seems he's doing this because he's getting a baby. I wouldn't have any use for one of those. I'd rather have the books.

Posted 2:48 PM by Angie Schultz

The Ugly Anti-American

I've been writing this post for weeks, jumping off from various news items. Generally I become disgusted and give up. Let's see what happens this time.

Tim Blair brings us this USA Today story on anti-Americanism in Europe.

Pieter Ockers, European analyst for iJet Travel Intelligence, an American company that provides travel risk management advice for corporate and leisure travelers.

"But the (European) media often stoke the fires," he says. "Their media portray Americans as culturally inferior, ignorant of world politics, arrogant in our interaction with the rest of the world and, worst of all, the bully of the neighborhood."

Oh, that's new.

Vince Vaughn, who is an actor of some sort (which means I've never seen the show he stars in) says:

Sometimes the complaints left him speechless, like the time he was told " 'America had no culture' by a kid wearing a Kobe Bryant T-shirt and listening to rapper DMX."

But one incident really stung.

"Man, it was bad," says the Rat Pack-y star of Swingers. "These girls saw us and were kind of flirting, and they kept asking us if we were American. Finally we said, 'Yes,' and they just took off.

"One girl turns and says, 'We were hoping you were Canadian.' Canadian? Since when was it cooler to be Canadian?"

Well, for a long time. For one thing, it is legendary that Canadians are urged to make sure they put Canadian flags on their backpacks as they travel through Europe, lest they be taken for those nasty Americans and spit upon. One Canadian woman told me that she was told to take Canadian flags, but American money.

Fifteen or so years ago, my brother went to the Boy Scout Jamboree (or something like that) in Australia. He was in his mid-teens at the time. For some reason there were a lot of girls, European girls, at the Boy Scout whatsis.

One flirted with him for a bit, then asked where he was from. He told her he was American.

"Oh, Americans are so rude!" she said, and stomped off.

Later on, he was talking to another girl, who asked where he was from. This one sniffed, "Americans are so arrogant!" and vanished.

The next time a girl asked him where he came from, he told her he was Canadian, thus shaming his descendants for four generations. It's too bad, because she probably would've told him that Americans were bigoted, thus completing the Hypocrisy Trifecta.

This story has the smell of legend about it, but that's what he told me.

Then there's this utterly typical piece in New Yorker.

It's entitled, "The Unloved American: Two Centuries of Alienating Europe", so we'll know right off the bat where its sympathies lie. It's not about two centuries of misunderstandings, two centuries of culture clash, or two centuries of European snobbery: it's about two centuries of American offenses against decency and taste.

I found this article by way of InstaPundit. He didn't seem to notice this aspect, and neither did Gary Farber, from whom he got it. So it occurred to me that it might be intended as sly irony, to expose European hypocrisy. After re-reading it, I don't think that's the case.

Here's are some small samplings:

Dickens's America is all Yankee repression and southern stupor. He saw Boston, New York, and Philadelphia through the keyhole of the prison cell and the madhouse.

You forget, sir, who you are dealing with. This is Dickens. Dickens was in his element when richly detailing filth and corruption. He saw London and Paris that way too.

Soot-black, fog-fouled Chicago, its scummy river speckled with rust and grease, was, [Kipling] thought, an apparition of the American future.

And an apparition of the contemporaneous British present: London was also "soot-black and fog-fouled" at that time.

I hate to bring up such trivial examples, but that's pretty much what the entire piece is based on: excerpts from famous writers who came, who saw, who were appalled by conditions that often existed in their homelands at the same time.

He goes on:

But of all the character flaws that Europeans have ascribed to Americans, nothing has contributed more to widening the Atlantic than national egocentricity (a bit rich, admittedly, coming from the French).

Yes. And the British. And the Germans. And the Russians. And the... In fact, there is hardly a group in existence whose members will not admit (occasionally in the strictest confidence, as with Australians) that their nation is the proudest, the richest, the free-est, the most passionate, the most logical, the most cultured, the best one on earth. This is not limited to Europeans, or even Westerners. East Asians, for example, can be famously ethnocentric.

I've been listening, these past months, to story after story of European anti-Americanism. In fact, one rarely hears that European opposition to war with Iraq is the result of any particular American policy, but an objection to America itself. We are arrogant, we are told. We are ignorant. We are clumsy and simplistic.

Friends, every time you hear this, reflect on how each of these things is also true of Europeans, very frequently to a far greater degree. Like my brother, I've rudely been told by arrogant Europeans that all Americans are rude and arrogant (not to mention bigoted). I've been told that Americans are ignorant by Europeans who had the most fantastic and childish notions of what life in the US is like.

This is the thing that astonishes me the most. The average American is ignorant of other countries. But in my experience, the average American---or, at least the one you find travelling abroad---is willing to learn; willing, in effect, to be told he's ignorant (although often with a small internal sigh).

The problem with many Europeans (and others) is not so much what they don't know, but what they do know that isn't true. Europeans get their view of American life from American movies and TV shows, so they know more of the surface features of the US than Americans do of Europe. But they take this thin facade for the true whole, and insist that it is they who know what the US is really like. Poor, blinkered, Americans---so manipulated by corporations and their fascist government that they don't know what an evil hellhole their country is.

In fact, they remind me a lot of X-Files fans for whom the show confirms their lifelong fears/wishes. When they find that the show doesn't jibe with reality, it is "reality" that is determined to be artificial. If you don't understand that, then it's because They have succeeded in brainwashing you.

Not all Europeans are such hardcore idiots, by any means; but even the more sympathetic ones still have gaping holes in their knowledge of the US, even the ones who have actually lived here. Of course, there's no real reason why anyone should be required to have deep knowledge of American politics or life. That would be silly.

Unless they're going to tell us where we're wrong---not only wrong but greedy, stupid, childish, or evil. Then, they'd better know something a little more informed than "Imperialism!" and "Bush is a cowboy!"

Posted 1:42 PM by Angie Schultz

Something Amis in Texas

Today the Guardian brings us the wit and wisdom of Martin Amis:

And doesn't Texas sometimes seem to resemble a country like Saudi Arabia, with its great heat, its oil wealth, its brimming houses of worship, and its weekly executions?

I live in Houston.

Went out to eat last night. After dinner I went to the bathroom while Niles paid the check. When I came out, he was nowhere to be found. I figured he was in the bathroom, so I waited near the door. A man from the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice swooped in, and beat me for not having my burqa on straight. Remember: "one size fits all" doesn't, and I'm 5'10". He wanted to know where my male escort was, and I told him Niles was in the bathroom. He said he'd heard that line before, and commenced beating me again. Just then Niles showed up and was fined $10 for leaving his woman unattended. Thank goodness they didn't want to see our marriage certificate!

So we went to the Barnes & Noble, where they were having a ceremonial burning of Martin Amis books. I wanted Mark Steyn's The Case for the Annexation of Canada, but they didn't have it. Instead, all they had were books about the greatness of Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld. As usual, there was a poster with announcements of upcoming literary events. This week is a real treat: they're publically executing Molly Ivins in the parking lot.

Finally we went to the grocery store. We like to go late at night, when there are no compulsory prayer breakfasts. We had a coupon for EL Fudge cookies (butter sandwich cookies in the shape of elves, with chocolate creme in them), but since they started putting little messages on the back ("Elves Exist!")[*], they've been declared Satanic.

Also from Amis:

All US presidents - and all US presidential candidates - have to be religious or have to pretend to be religious. More specifically, they have to subscribe to "born again" Christianity.

Yeah, that law was passed just last week.

Brought to my attention by Dr. Frank. Amis's column brought to you by the Department of September 10. This post sponsored by the Google Institute for Smashing the Enemies of Our Glorious Fatherland.

[*] This part is true. It's scary.

Posted 12:50 PM by Angie Schultz

The World Says: Yes to Saddam

There was an interesting commentary by Amir Taheri in the Houston Chronicle today, entitled, "'Old Europe' feeds Saddam's suicidal fantasy."

While the American media are having a field day against the "old Europeans" -- France and Germany -- the Iraqi media are building a fantasy world in which a resurgent Europe, inspired by Saddam Hussein's "heroic leadership," will put an end to the U.S. "quest for global hegemony."

Iraq's media are trying to create the impression that Saddam enjoys worldwide support that cuts across ideological barriers.

Uday knows who the real enemies are (you do too---four letters, starts with J). He writes in an editorial in his newspaper, Babel:

The battle started in Iraq...But the struggle of mankind against the American-Zionist enemy has now spread to the whole world.

Remember the vile accusation that the peace marchers actually provided aid and comfort to Saddam and his regime?:

Uday's television station showed footage of the "peace" rallies in the West for seven hours on four successive days. Every 10 minutes or so a portrait of Saddam would appear. A solemn voice-over read the message: "The world says: Yes to Saddam."

Wonder if they translated the Bush = Hitler banners?

This next bit may explain much.

Iraqi newspapers and radio and television networks, all controlled by Saddam or his family, refer to [Schroeder] as al-munadhil al-bassel (the brave combatant) because of the stance he has taken against the United States and in favor of Iraq. This is an important title in the Iraqi Baathist lexicon, just one degree below the title of al-munadhil al-akbar (the great combatant), used to describe Chirac, the only Western head of state to have met Saddam and to have forged a personal relationship with him in the 1970s.

So, what would you rather be called when you visit a foreign country: Chiraq the Weasel, or the Great Combatant. Maybe if we started calling him the Head Cheese or possibly Leader of the Great Nation Whose Culture's Boots We Are Not Fit to Lick, he'd soften up a bit.

If there is no war, perhaps Hussein will give him a medal. (Note: I feel Lent coming on, so I will be giving up cheap jokes about how only a Frenchman could get a medal for not fighting. Make up your own.)

The newspaper Babel has praised Schroeder's policy as "an attempt to assert German honor under American occupation."

That is to say, brave Schroeder is opposing us even though we occupy and control his country.

Other Iraqi heroes, according to Taheri, include Jean-Marie Le Pen, Noam Chomsky, Ed Said, and Jesse Jackson.

I swear I am not making this up.

By persuading him -- even unintentionally -- that he could remain in power without fulfilling his commitments to the Security Council, the "old Europeans" may have contributed to Saddam's refusal to disarm.

NO!?

I wondered who this Taheri fellow is, so I googled him up.

[Now that Google owns my butt, can I get a kickback everytime I say Google? Google Google Google.]

Taheri's an Iranian who writes for various venues, including this NRO article on anti-Americanism in Europe.

Posted 12:07 PM by Angie Schultz

The Sloan Ranger

One of the human shields still in Baghdad is Australian. I'm going to pick on this guy, for reasons I'll get to in a minute. But first, while I was googling around for information on him, I found this interesting item in the Sydney Morning Herald, from last December 26:

Iraq has called for volunteers "to act as human shields" when the expected attack by the United States comes, Saad Qasim Hammoudi, an official of the ruling Ba'ath party, said.

However, peace organisations which have been active in humanitarian relief and in organising visits to Iraq in defiance of US law, denounced the report as propaganda.

Whose propaganda? Iraqi? Or US?

Mr Hammoudi claimed yesterday that he was expecting volunteers from the US and Europe to risk their lives for Saddam. However, his claim was greeted with distaste yesterday by America's anti-war movement, which has spent months deflecting charges that its activists are prepared to die for the Iraqi leader.

"I know of groups going over to witness and to educate themselves, but I don't know of anybody going over and saying 'I am a human shield'."

So sayeth an unnamed spokesman for the Institute for Public Accuracy, who organized Congressmen McDermott, Bonior, and Thompson's trip to Baghdad, as well as Sean Penn's.

"Nobody is naive enough to believe that a superpower like the US is not going to bomb Iraq because there are peace people there," said Mary Trotochaud, who returned on Saturday.

The SMH identifies Ms. Trotochaud only as one of the "members of a US delegation" who had been to Baghdad. Fortunately, she has a funny name, so I can google her up and find that she's a a "human rights activist and potter". She spent a year in the federal pen for repeat trespass at the School of the Americas. That's the only credential this site, which must be the delegation mentioned, has for her.

Ms. Trotochaud is evidently too naive to believe anyone could be that naive.

So, anyhow: As of December 26, the "peace people" were scoffing at the idea that anyone would actually go to Baghdad to be a human shield.

Now, for our Aussie mate. He's Gordon Sloan, who was a...contestant?...on the Australian version of Big Brother. I never watched that show in any of its incarnations. Those reality shows leave me cold, ever since MTV's The Real World. For me, hell is other people, so I could never understand the attraction of watching other people enjoy the hell that is one another. Especially since most of those people were on the show to exhibit themselves in hopes of catching some minor celebrity wave: extreeeeeme sports commentator, supermodel, VJ, whatever. But, before I got cable in Australia, there was often little to watch on TV. So occasionally (probably while my MST tape was rewinding) I would catch glimpses of the show.

The only thing I remember is that it featured some scrawny chick with a voice like sheet metal. When I tuned in she was expressing concern about her "teets"---that is to say, "tits", said in a sheet metal-cutting Australian accent. She showed them to us (this is Australian TV, remember); I was underwhelmed, but I am no authority on these things. I do know that every time she said "teets", one of the glass jars in the recycling bin would give a thin scream of anguish, then shatter.

Later another (or the same, hard to tell) scrawny chick was shown in bed with a guy, self-consciously engaged in a bit of slap-and-tickle (and I mean that literally, rather than metaphorically) under the sheets for our enjoyment. By that time I had another tape ready, so I was spared further joy.

Our young Mr. Sloan fits into this environment perfectly. Today, Tim Blair points us to this brief profile of Sloan, in which it is revealed that he does not read books, and that his favorite movies are Final Fantasy: The Movie and eXistenZ. The first movie is derived from a video game; the second is about a virtual reality game.

Now, I've certainly been on the receiving end of enough sneers from snotty, superior critics who denigrate science fiction and fantasy, so I don't want to turn into one of them. But---really---these are his two favorite movies? Presumably he bases his opinions on technical expertise rather than writing, plot, acting, art direction, cinematography and so forth, because this page also says that he was "moving from architecture into 3D animation for films". He also "describes himself as a dot.com kind of guy. Whatever that means."

I would say that it sounds like he's the kind of enegetic yet unfocused fellow who prefers to get in on the ground floor of a Hot! New! Thing! rather than go through the hard work of building up expertise in an established field, but since I did the latter, that just be my bias.

On the other hand, maybe not, since when asked about fame he says:

Fame is a word given to people who've overachieved through natural talent and hard work, and gained the respect and admiration of firstly their peer group, then the world. We are not famours [sic] or talented. We are popular by exposure so TV networks can sell furniture and breakfast radio gets its sound bits!

Well, that shows a certain self-awareness, anyway, although I'll point out that he goes along with this willingly.

Then there's this article about Sloan's human shield activities:

Big Brother showed him how the media could take an event and "escalate it into an ultrasignificant nature, even though the number of people involved is minuscule". Now he wants to use the high value the media places on Western casualties as opposed to Iraqi "collateral damage" to good effect.

He doesn't seem particularly convinced that his own precious carcass will stop bombs from falling, but he's eager to exploit "the media's" fascination with Western casualties. I'm not entirely sure he's grasped the point that he might be one of those casualties. This article also says he's taking a video camera with him; I'm betting he plans more on documenting casualties than on being one.

I was wondering where he got this idea that "Western" casualties were somehow more interesting than non-Western ones. I suspect it's from stories like today's, where we find that 21 people were killed, including one American. Those horrid Americans---thinking they're the only ones who matter! Except that this sort of thing was true for the Australian media, too.

I don't think the deaths of Westerners who have volunteered to die for a thuggish regime will have quite the same resonance in Western media as those who died while waiting at the airport.

The media aspects of it were apparently a lot more interesting to Sloan than were the political or humanitarian issues:

For Mr Sloan the decision to quit his job as an architect and aspiring animator to head off to Iraq had more to do with George Bush than Saddam Hussein.

"I really haven't researched him. He's not an interest of mine," he says of the Iraqi leader...

You can't say the same thing of America though---he's researched us thoroughly:

Of the Americans, he says they "cruise round the world burning resources ... They're not planning on using oil more efficiently or sustainably - they just want want to guarantee they have 40 per cent of the world's oil so they can keep having big cars."

(That article brought to us by Tim Blair.)

This is why I have singled Sloan out for special attention. What Hussein's done doesn't seem to bother him---he's not even interested in finding out. If I had gotten the idea into my head to go "shield" someone many people referred to as a tyrant, I'd at least read up a bit before I left, just in case they were right. Sloan is like Grace Knight, naked protest organizer, who admitted that she was confused on this whole business of "facts", but she knew war was icky and wrong.

This article in The Age reports that:

Former Big Brother contestant Gordon Sloan last night said he was determined to stay on in Iraq as a human shield, despite some volunteers leaving.

"You find people are here for their own agendas but, if you are getting nervous now when there's no soldiers with their fingers on the triggers, I'm not sure why you came really,"

Especially since

He said the political situation in Baghdad was so relaxed it was "kinda like a Club Med war zone really".

I still think he doesn't believe he's going to be a casualty, but at least he's right about this. (Here it's explained that the organizers thought they could get five or ten thousand people to show up, and there'd be no war. Since they didn't have that many, there's no reason to stick around.)

The other day I mentioned this article in the SMH:

[Sloan] laughed off a warning by the US Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, that Saddam faced war crime charges for using human shields - even volunteers.

Laugh while you can, Monkey Boy. Maybe you'll face war crimes charges too.

Mr Sloan denied he had gone to Iraq for publicity - he was motivated by concern about "American bullying tactics globally".

And by the chance of getting in some guerilla journalism, just in case the Sydney Morning Herald or the Guardian ever launches a TV network. (Unless the BBC will want him.)

I shall watch his future career with considerable interest.

Posted 3:33 PM by Angie Schultz

Signs and Portents

Today is 3/3/03.

333: the kid brother of the Beast.

Posted 3:03 PM by Angie Schultz

Where Are the Shows of Yesteryear?

On Friday morning I caught the tail end of a Red Skelton movie on TCM, which the listings say was Panama Hattie, from 1942. This is based on a popular Cole Porter play first produced in 1940. By the time the movie was made, the US was at war, and the plot reflected this (I've had a hard time determining this for certain, but the song "The Son of a Gun Who Picks on Uncle Sam" was not in the original Broadway play).

Just before the end of the movie, Red proposes to a woman (not the eponymous Hattie, but probably Leila Tree, played by Marsha Hunt), and says that on their honeymoon, after the war, they can see the world. They can visit the Phillipines, China, India, and "I'll even show you where Japan used to be." Then the whole cast sings a song (whose name I don't know---it's not "Son of a Gun...") promising to to "slap the Japs right off of the map".

I'm torn about this. On the one hand, I don't think our civilization is poorer for a dearth of songs threatening (even somewhat humorously) to wipe out entire countries; on the other hand, it sure is different to see entertainers act as if the US is on the side of Right. (Oh, but Right is such an outmoded concept, don't you think? Unless it involves equating Bush with Hitler.)

Many commentators (like Victor Davis Hanson) have compared today's anti-war marchers with yesterday's leftists who also protested war until the Nazis turned on the Soviets. Few people remembered them, however, until the present crisis.

Let me be clear: I'm all for people airing their views, even if I think they're idiots. I'm just wondering how they got to be idiots. In 1941, one could have made a case that we'd just been hassling the poor Japanese, and that they struck back in natural frustration. That they'd attacked Pearl Harbor so that we couldn't attack them, and so if we just absorbed the blow and kept our heads down, it would be OK, because they'd know we weren't threatening them. I mean, they know they couldn't possibly conquer us, so it's not like we really had to fear them. And besides, we were just after China's oil, anyway.

But did any actors or musicians express those views? Would anyone had paid attention to them if they had? Would they have worked again?

What's different this time?

While you're pondering that, take a peek at these two web sites. One shows a picture of Lena Horne, who had an uncredited role as a night club singer. The picture at bottom right shows her in the ping pong ball-bedecked skirt she wore in the final number. She doesn't have anything to do with my point, I just like her.

The other, for you broadband, flash-enabled types, is a fantastic WWII museum, offering recordings of old news reports, speeches, and songs of the war. "The Sun of a Gun Who Picks on Uncle Sam" is there (rather reminiscent of Charlie Daniels's "In America" in content, if not in style). Listen to the patriotic (often politically-incorrect) songs. Hear the cheers and whistles in FDR's "Day of Infamy" speech.

Wonder what's different today.

Posted 10:11 AM by Angie Schultz

Vidal Buffoon

Another fellow I can regard with contempt unsullied by pity is Gore Vidal, here drooling on the radio:

"I don't see us winning the war," lefty writer Gore Vidal told WABC Radio's Batchelor and Alexander late Thursday. "We have made enemies of one billion Muslims," he added.

...

"As dumb as this administration is, they don't look ahead," he told the WABC Radio duo. "They don't know where any countries are. They don't know how to make deals. They don't really know much about anything. There is no plan."

That's right, not only Bush but Rumsfeld, Cheney, Powell, and Rice have no idea where any countries are. They couldn't find Canada on a map of North America. If they could, they'd probably invade it.

"Whatever Saddam has that might be atrocious - mustard gas, pox, viruses - we will ensure that he uses it."

That is, he'll use those WMDs he doesn't have.

Vidal is also a big believer in the war-for-oil conspiracy theory, telling WABC, "Now you have people [in Washington] who have no interest in the country at all. They're interested in their companies, their corporations grabbing Caspian oil."

Psst! Gore! This is Iraq, not Afghanistan! Iraq = Iraqi oil. Afghanistan = Caspian oil pipeline. Jeez!

(Via Hollywood Halfwits.)

Then there's his appearance in Spain's Vanguardia (via an Argentine paper), as reported by John of Iberian Notes. He bubbles over with conspiracy theories about oil and September 11, then insists he doesn't believe in conspiracy theories. I was going to translate the article and post more of it, but it's available to registered users only.

John says:

Vidal is accusing the leaders of the United States of conspiring for the benefit of the oil industry. He is saying that they are guilty of war crimes and corruption and abuse of power, since going to war to steal another country's resources is obviously not a just war...Remember: saying "No blood for oil" is saying that the United States, British, Spanish, Italian, Australian, and Eastern European governments are international war criminals. That's a very serious charge to make and I am disgusted that so many people are making it so lightly. But not surprised.

(Emphasis in original.)

Not to mention the fact that most of these idiots don't seem to believe that Bush is going to seize the oil for the US, but for himself and his oil cronies. And all those other governments are helping him.

Now go to COINTELPRO Tool, which links to a transcript of a CNN interview with Vidal. At one point Vidal hints that the interviewer, Tucker Carlson, needs a remedial reading class. Carlson keeps throwing it back in his face. Vidal asks Carlson's name, then tells him he likes his tie. Later he calls Carlson "Mr. Bow Tie".

Vidal's thesis is one that you can find in any group of deep-thinking, drug-addled college freshman: that we set up the Taliban to fight the Russians, and we signed a contract for a pipeline but they "went crazy" so we had to have an "excuse" to take them out, and Bin Laden was the excuse. He says that even though he believes Bin Laden was responsible for 9/11, he was still the excuse to take out the Taliban. See, we were going to hit the Taliban in October anyway, to make them let us put a pipeline in. (Oh, and the major consumer for the pipeline oil was going to be China.) But my favorite part is this, which Carlson quotes from Vidal's book, Dreaming War: Blood For Oil and the Cheney-Bush Junta:

This is probably why geography has not really been taught since World War II -- to keep people in the dark as to where we are blowing things up. Because Enron wants to blow them up. Or Unocal, the great pipeline company, wants a war going some place."

Carlson tells Vidal that it seems a little far-fetched to think that Enron controls what gets taught in schools.

Vidal: Well, it would, but I think you've got to take into account that the people who do the educating are also the people who steal money from us like Enron. Like this administration.

CARLSON: How does Enron control the schools?

VIDAL: How does Enron control the schools? It siphons up so much money for itself as does the war machine that it's in collusion with.

Let's see, Enron---travelling back in time forty years before its founding---sucked up all the money out of the treasury which would otherwise go to education, thereby cutting out geography classes so that that people would not know that Unocal wants wars all over the world, because as we all know political instability is the best thing in the world for the profitable extraction and transportation of oil.

But it's not a conspiracy theory, remember that.

Posted 8:47 PM by Angie Schultz

All Too Human Shields

And though I came to jeer at you
I leave now with regret
And as the gloom begins to fall
I see there is no, only all
Though you came with sword held high
You did not conquer, only die


Perhaps the emotion is regret. I was going to present this article with great glee and scorn, but after reading it through I cannot. It's just too sad. Yes, the glee and scorn's still there, but there's an emotion I can't name mixed with them. Maybe it's regret. Not for me, but for them.

They did not come to conquer, of course, but to "do good". Some of them. Maybe. Maybe some came to be seen doing good. Some of them came to give other people a poke in the eye, and they don't realize that the eyes are far beyond their reach.

Many of the Merry Prankster human shields who set out to stop the war in bright red buses have left for home now. This article is by Charlotte Edwards, a journalist who travelled with them.

Nine of the 11 British shields on the pioneering wave of red double-deckers left this weekend...Dr Abdul Hashimi, the official overseeing their mission in Iraq, had issued the shocked group with an ultimatum: deploy to the "strategic sites" hand-picked by the government or leave immediately.

Edwards says they shared one characteristic: naivete. I think stupidity must have been in good supply as well.

...a £500 donation from a well-wisher in Istanbul was squandered on boxes of Prozac in a misguided attempt to cheer up the war-weary Iraqi civilians.

Conspiracy theories spread like a contagion through the ranks. Whenever a puncture occurred it would be blamed on the CIA.

...

Sue Darling, 60, a former diplomat from Surrey, had been eager to demonstrate her civil service credentials: most importantly, she confided in one shield, she knew how to recognise a spy. Her first suspect turned out to be The Telegraph's photographer.

Not all of them are babes in the woods:

Initially, [young Bruce, a Canadian] had concerns about the sites, which included an oil refinery, a water purification plant and electricity stations. He was won over when the Iraqis provided televisions, VCRs, telephones and a Play Station.

...

"It's just like summer camp."

Diplomat Sue Darling was one of the liasons with the Iraqis.

[She] told the shields they would stay with families or in schools, hospitals and orphanges.

"As a former diplomat, I should deal with the Iraqi officials. I speak their language," she said. Once in Baghdad, Ms Darling...quickly acquiesced to the demands of the regime..

Reading back over this, I see that in pulling out the juicy quotes, I've made the article seem more mocking and amusing than it really is. Go and read the whole thing, and be moved to pity, and that emotion I can't define. (Something like world-weariness and deja vu with overtones of anger.)

Ah, but enough of sober emotions! Now here's a fellow I need not waste my pity on. Ken O'Keefe, the founder of the human shields movement does not disappoint in his loopiness. He's the former Marine (has anybody checked on this?) who renounced his American citizenship and carried around a homemade "citizen of the world" passport, which got him booted from several countries. He had no problem with guarding military installations.

O'Keefe...had alienated his companions who felt he had developed both a death wish and a messiah complex...his credibility had not been helped by the fact that he had, for much of the journey, been accompanied by his mother..."Dark forces have worked against me," he said, "but I have survived. My mission is hard core, in-your-face activism."

Even bad-ass hardcore revolutionaries need their mommies!

See also this article.

Posted 4:09 PM by Angie Schultz

Climbing Mount Insufferable

Tex of Whacking Day, he of the beautiful color scheme, calls to our attention this opinion piece by Richard Dawkins, in the Daily Fisk.

Dawkins is an evolutionary biologist who has written many well-received books, some of which I have, but haven't got around to reading. Dawkins commits a common sin in scientists, believing that a lifetime of intense study in one area entitles you to credibility when you pontificate on matters outside your specialty. It will occur to some that I am guilty of the same sin, because here I am, pontificating. This is true. But, for me as for Dawkins (or Tex, or any of a number of bloggers who day jobs are a mystery to me), We the People get to voice our opinions on these things.

But Tex and I don't get to do it in the pages of the Independent. Dawkins, speaking there, is no less a celebrity opining outside his sphere of expertise than Sheryl Crow. I'll admit that, between Dawkins and Crow, I'd rather see Dawkins in the Independent; he's less likely to tell us that the way not to have wars is not to have enemies. And giggle.

When the stated aim was to disarm him, Saddam had only to comply and war would be averted. But if the aim is to save the poor helpless Iraqis from their wicked tyrant, everything changes. Why would anyone disarm on the eve of an inevitable attack? Mr Blair's sudden shift to the moral high ground is presumably a desperate (and it now seems unsuccessful) bid to win over his own party. But has he thought through how it will be viewed in Iraq?

Apparently Tony Blair has now come out and said that Saddam must go, rather than continuing on with the "disarmament" line. This morning's paper said that Bush has said much the same thing (I must have missed that). Dawkins thinks it's some sort of ploy on Blair's part, but Blair would have to be a lot dumber than he is to believe that the real problem with Labour was that he only intended to disarm Saddam, rather than remove him altogether. The anti-war faction doesn't want any war, for whatever purpose.

But the coincidence of both Bush and Blair saying this tells me, poor thinker that I am, that they are throwing off the UN mask. So far, their main justification for military action has been Saddam's lack of compliance with UN resolutions. As he has in the past, then, Saddam has been promising compliance, then compliance with reservations, then complied a little, then... Pinning war to the UN resolutions means he can keep this up forever. Now, if these reports are correct, they're saying Saddam must go regardless of compliance.

If they're playing down the disarmament aspect, I'd say we were ready to roll without too much more UN footsy.

The timing alone indicates that the real reason for war is neither of the two offered by Tony Blair. If it had been, all this would have blown up long ago. It would not have waited until George Bush failed to catch Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan and needed a new foreign adventure to divert his electorate. War would have been a big plank in both Bush's and Blair's election platforms.

Which election is this? Bush's original election, or last year's midterm elections? If he means the 2000 election, then he's apparently forgotten all about that little September 11 business. I'll say again that you can make a good case (right now) that Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11 or Al Qaeda, but it's obvious that the administration thinks otherwise.

Gerhard Schröder is the only major leader to have mentioned such a war to his electorate - he was against it - and he consequently has the best, if not the only, claim to a popular mandate.

Schröder, who is so popular his government is in danger of collapsing. Also, if I recall correctly (and I may not), his party's opponents actually got more of the popular vote, but due to some arcane German election procedures, Schröder was returned to office. Now, again if I recall correctly, these weren't shady or suspect proceedings, but the natural way German elections work, although perhaps obscure to us. I emphasize this because Dawkins's very next sentence is:

Bush not only failed to mention it in his manifesto. He failed even to get elected.

Dawkins says this three times in this piece. What I say three times is true. Nope, sorry, doesn't work that way.

To our friends in foreign lands: Bush is the President. He was elected President. Get over it.

At the time, I was not happy with the outcome of the 2000 election, nor with the way it was decided. However, that's all over now and Bush is President. He did not have a clear mandate, that's certain, and had Gore been declared the winner, the same would have been true for him. If Gore had been declared the winner, Richard Dawkins would be equally correct (which is to say, not at all) in saying that Gore was not elected.

This is George Bush's war. His motives and his timing have an internal American rationale. Bush wants oil and he wants the 2004 election...An important part of the post-11 September American electorate likes kicking Arab butt, and never mind if a completely different lot of Arabs (who, incidentally, detest the secular Saddam) committed the atrocity. If Bush now wins a quick war, with few American casualties and no draft, he will triumph in the 2004 election...Victory over Iraq will play well in Peoria.

Dawkins's whole point is that Britain will help Bush get elected by helping him
win the war easily, Is that really what they want to do?

In that post-war climate of seething hostility, are we, in Britain, going to let ourselves be identified, throughout the world, with this uncouth fundamentalist redneck?

If...Bush finally wins a term as President, decent Americans, intellectual Americans, American scholars, scientists, philosophers, engineers, writers, artists and, not least, American philanthropists, Americans with a great deal to contribute, are going to be looking for a civilised haven.

Oh, but he's not anti-American! Don't make that mistake:

Those of us opposed to the war are sometimes accused of anti-Americanism. I am vigorously pro-American, which is one reason I am anti-Bush. They didn't elect him, and they deserve better.

This really pisses me off:

As a scientist, I would like to be able to say something like the following to my American friends:

As a scientist, I would like to say the following to Mr. Dawkins: Bite me.

"Dear Colleague: You are a member of the leading scientific nation, by far. No wonder there has been a brain drain from my country to yours.

Yeah, there's a drained brain behind me as I type, using his mighty intellect to print out silly pictures.

Occasional attempts, by my own university of Oxford among others, to compete on the open market to recruit leading American professors or promising young scientists, have usually foundered on the problem of salary.

You got that right, bubba. British universities pay chicken feed, and on top of that you have to live in Britain, where the climate's cold and the beer's warm.

But is it possible that things are now beginning to change? Could it be that political developments in your country are now starting to make emigration look more attractive, in spite of the salary differential?

No.

"I know, of course, without even asking, that you were a member of the majority who voted for Al Gore.

Because, of course, only dimwitted uncouth fundamentalist rednecks would vote for Bush. "Oh, how do you stand living in a country with those...those...persons? I'd feel defiled."

Dawkins's awesome mental powers seem to be working on some esoteric logical plane to which my feeble intellect cannot aspire. See, it was the majority who voted for Gore last time, but this time Bush seeks to woo a majority of Americans by slaughtering some Arabs. Apparently last time some uncouth rednecks inadvertantly voted for Gore when their shotguns happened to blast a hole in the ballot next to Gore's name. Either that, or many of the knuckle-draggers who didn't vote at all last time refrained because Bush somehow failed to include enough blood and guts in his platform

But remember, he's NOT anti-American.

"Have things reached the point where you might consider moving? We in Britain may not be able to match your salary, but we can at least offer you a civilised, decent government, very different from the one you are eager to leave behind."

If only...

Yeah, if only Britain had a better climate. If only it wasn't so crowded. If only the crime rate was lower. If only self-defense was legal. If only Big Brother wasn't watching. If only the tax rate wasn't so high. If only Europe weren't taking the place over. If only the British intelligentsia weren't filled with condescending twits like you.

Thanks for Niles though. He says he's not going back until you can do something about the climate.

Shivering Briton Peter Briffa also has a few comments.

Posted 12:27 PM by Angie Schultz

Manufacturing Assent

I just now nipped over for a squint at COINTELPRO Tool, motto: "Manufacturing Consent since 2002". And what do I see in his banner ad but an Amazon ad for Chompsky's 9-11. Oh, the irony!

Hmm...wonder if Amazon (or Pyra) is trying to match ads with sites. Bad move, in that case.